Hi folks,
DIFFRACTION SPIKES:
As a few people mentioned, there are some 'cross' patterns from
diffraction spikes around bright stars. They were at their worst in
the original GSC 1.0. In GSC 1.1, the folks at Space Telescope Science
Institute (STScI) added some simple code to find and suppress _most_
of the spikes... or at least label them as possible artifacts.
This sort of weirdness is one reason I want to generate a cross-index
between GSC and A2.0. Guide 8 will use this, along with a new switch
to suppress GSC stars that don't have an A2.0 counterpart. Turn that
switch on, and almost all the spurious "stars" in GSC (plate scratches,
diffraction spikes, asteroids that happened to be passing through that
area) will vanish.
Of course, a few stars will vanish that probably shouldn't, due to
defects in A2.0. There will be situations where you'll want to turn this
feature off (though I don't think this will happen very often.)
CCD FRAME ODDITIES:
I ran into similar problems with the CCD frame, long ago. Under
certain circumstances, odd lines would zip out from corners of the
frame. But that particular bug was fixed; I suspect you've found
something new here.
Most likely, I'm not seeing this because I've selected a different
camera, or focal length, or field to look at. I'd ask anyone who sees
this sort of thing to please exit Guide right away, so that a STARTUP.MAR
file will be saved with the settings involved. Then e-mail me your
STARTUP.MAR.
UPDATING FILES:
As Bob Elliott suggests, you should update ALL files, REGARDLESS OF
FILE DATE. PARTIAL UPDATES ARE LIKELY TO LEAD TO CRASHES.
I capitalize the above because it's been known to lead to grief on
many occasions. I've not figured out a way around it yet, short of putting
version numbers in most of the files.
Another important point: if you are running Guide in a language other
than English, YOU MUST DOWNLOAD THE 'LANGUAGE' FILE FOR YOUR LANGUAGE,
TOO. Failing to do so usually will not lead to an immediate crash, but
eventually, one is apt to happen.
CRASH ON 'LOAD A MARK':
Bernd, I suspect the crash on loading a mark happens because doing
so changes the time... you may remember that a few messages back, people
were running into crashes/lockups when doing this with the 30 January 2000
version? The problem proved to be in LUNAR.DLL. The fix is to either
download the update again, or to get the following replacement LUNAR.DLL:
http://www.projectpluto.com/lunar2.zip
CHARON TROUBLES:
Jan, the best bet would indeed be to send me an example image or two.
Charon _has_ loaded MX5-C images, but it was pretty marginal... and I'm
not sure the images were in FITS at the time. Furthermore, I think
Starlight XPress was trying out a somewhat unusual way of storing color
FITS images, and I doubt Charon would handle it in a truly sane manner.
Anyway, my standard reply for people with Charon problems applies here:
e-mail me an image or two, plus the target name and focal length used.
It may be good to tell me when the image was taken, too. That's not
usually necessary, but some SX FITS images have bizarre/corrupted/oddly
formatted exposure dates and times.
-- Bill