Hi folks,

Catching up on all sorts of things:

Joe, for that CCD frame update, I didn't bother to post an entire
update. All I did was to post the file that actually changed, in this
ZIP file:

http://www.projectpluto.com/ccds.zip

That "Guide6" in the error report causes me to suspect you've got
the original (or close to it) Guide 8 software in there. Shortly after
Guide 8 came out, I got a report or two of that problem, and tracked
down a couple of references to Guide 6 embedded in the program and
changed them back to Guide 8. The current version may conceivably
crash (hard as that is to believe!), but when it does so, it'll do
it with a Guide 8 error.

That indicates that you've got an older 'guide8.exe' mixed in with
a newer 'ehelpext.dat'. (The latter is where the version date comes
from.) Perhaps when the 'guide8.zip' file was unZIPped, only some
files were extracted, but not others? Or perhaps the 'guide8.exe'
_was_ extracted, then replaced with an older version from elsewhere
(perhaps from the CD-ROM)?

This would also explain why you're getting a crash. Mix an older
'guide8.exe' with some of the newer files (for example, a current
.MAR file), and it'll crash right away: all sorts of things appear in
the newer files that an older 'guide8.exe' wouldn't expect to see.

Mark, the "solid ground" color can be changed. Just go to the
Display... Backgrounds dialog and click on the colored square next
to the "Show Horizon" option.

Chris, I'll assume you mean "Charon", not "Canopus" (there is
an excellent photometry/astrometry package by that name from Brian
Warner). To get Charon to read this data, you have to do something
that is not at all intuitively obvious: instead of using "Match to
A2.0 (data on hard drive)", use plain "Match to A2.0". When you run
Charon in this way, it still "thinks" in terms of getting data from
the CD.

I'll have to revise this chunk of the program heavily in any case,
because I want it to accept B1.0 data downloaded from VizieR and UCAC-2
data in the native format of that catalog. The current catalog selection
method worked fine when there were only a couple of catalogs, but is
becoming a real hassle; the only solution at this point is to scrap
the old code and start from scratch.

Josch, my guess would be that the PinPoint-ized images have WCS
(World Coordinate System) data in the headers. I wouldn't go to the
effort to add support for this to Guide just to get PinPoint images,
but there are plenty of other sources of WCS-ized images. (For
example, 2MASS images are available with WCS headers... and I may
be able to grab them automatically, just like DSS ones.) So yes,
this is apt to happen eventually. (Keeping in mind that "eventually"
rarely means "soon"!)

Laurent, there is indeed a "test update" posted at

http://www.projectpluto.com/new.htm

The only documented improvement on the page right now is the use
of UCAC-2. I posted the update, mentioned this improvement to a few
folks who had inquired about that catalog, and they've given it a
try. It seems to work.

Other improvements are included (anything on this mailing list where
I said things such as "that bug is fixed" or "I've added this"), and
I'll have to go back and add mentions of those things to 'new.htm'.

Bill, my apologies for the delayed reply to your private e-mails...
yes, that line ought to read "geocentric" rather than "heliocentric".
(Or it ought to give heliocentric coordinates!)

-- Bill