Hi all,

Still more replies, about bold lines; display of the celestial
equator; B1.0 labels and symbol display; and determining when an
asteroid reaches opposition:

BOLD LINES:

Doug Snyder suggested allowing the horizon (and, by extension,
other lines) to be "bold". With the recently-posted update, this
is now possible (in the "styles" dialog, which previously just let
you select things such as solid, dashed, dotted, etc., you can
now adjust the line width to be "wider" or "narrower".)

CELESTIAL EQUATOR:

Doug also asked about showing the celestial equator. Only way
to do that right now would be to edit 'startup.mar' and look for the
last line that says '25 Marking'. There are several such lines;
the last one controls the galactic equator and looks something like
this (exact values may vary depending on your settings):

25 Marking 7 1 5 3 J2000.000000 ...

Change the '3' to read '0'. The "galactic equator" will now
become a "celestial equator" instead.

Aside from being a clumsy hack, this does cost you your galactic
equator. The time may be approaching to add a whole slew of proposed
"tick, grid, etc."-like markings, such as the celestial equator,
the meridian, the celestial poles, the zenith/nadir, "compass
marks" (N, E, W, S on the horizon; possibly NE, NW, SE, SW if
desired); and the east-west meridian.

B1.0 DISPLAY:

Peter Nelson asked about this, and a standard suggestion
applies: if you want to change how Guide displays something
(doesn't matter much what it is), right-click on that
something, then on "Display". This will let you shut off the
labels on B1.0 stars, change the magnitude limit, and/or the
fields of view at which B1.0 stars are shown.

In a better world, it would also let you change or eliminate
the symbol associated with an object, but I've not gotten there
yet. Best you can do is modify the color (in the same dialog box
as you turn off labels) to match the background. (Or as I've
done: change it to be _close_ to the background, so you can
still tell that the stars came from B1.0, but the symbols aren't
as intrusive.)

ASTEROID OPPOSITIONS:

Alberto, to determine the opposition date of an asteroid,
you can generate an ephemeris for it that includes the
elongation. When that reaches a maximum, the asteroid is at
elongation. (While you're about it, you'll also see when it
reaches maximum magnitude, which isn't always the same thing.)

True, it might make more sense if you could click on an asteroid,
then "more info", and see: "Next opposition: (date)". Something
for me to add to the list...

-- Bill