Hi folks,
Another mixed bag of subjects:
SA2.0 ON A HARD DRIVE:
Karen Appleby asked about getting Guide to show SA2.0 data on the hard
drive... this was a bit problematic. In December, I posted a version of
Guide capable of displaying A1.0 or A2.0 from the hard drive; that's
described here:
http://www.projectpluto.com/update7.htm##ax0_direct
It occurred to me that the simplest answer to this question would be
to extend the above system to include SA1.0 and SA2.0. Thus, you can now
display SA2.0 data using a line in GUIDE.DAT such as:
SA2_PATH=14.3;f:\sa20;
(The meaning of this line is explained in gory detail at the above
link.) Posting this fix also gave me an opportunity to fix the incorrect
"version date" that Berthold noticed.
The main reason I didn't make SAx.0 viewable this way in the first place
was that it's no good for chart generation. It includes 50 million faint
stars and few or no bright ones. So I can't say this will lead to anything
wondrous, or even especially helpful. The main people have found for SAx.0
has been astrometry, and it has some problems even for that purpose.
A side note: I see on USNO's Web site that they now have SA2.0 disks
to ship again... guess they ran out recently. If you asked USNO for a
copy and didn't get one, now appears to be an excellent time to ask.
A further side note: I've heard from two or three people recently who
asked for and got a copy of the "full" A2.0, in its eleven-CD-ROM glory.
USNO goes through cycles with this dataset; sometimes they have plenty of
them, sometimes they have to ration them to worthy causes. It looks as
if they may have a surplus right now.
CCDM DISPLAY:
The CCDM (Catalogue of Components of Doubles & Multiples) is my main
hope for getting Guide 8 to display doubles "rationally", mostly because
its positions are accurate enough to allow for automated cross-referencing
(well, semi-automated.) I've just posted a little program to process CCDM
into a Guide-displayable form, along with the .TDF file needed to get it
to show up. Details at:
http://www.projectpluto.com/extras.htm#ccdm
WOLF-RAYET DISPLAY:
Oliver Kloes sent me the .TDF file and data needed to show the "Sixth
Catalogue of Galactic Wolf-Rayet Stars" (van der Hucht+ 1981), and I've
posted all this. Details at:
http://www.projectpluto.com/extras.htm#wolf_rayet
-- Bill