Re: [guide-user] Basic questions from a new guy.

Bernd Brinkmann Nov 16, 2004

Hello Pete,

I will try to answer some of yopur questions:

> I've been playing with Guide 8 for a week or two. I'm into chasing
> asteroids, and for this purpose its pretty neat software. But I
> have a couple of basic questions/problems.
>
> 1. This software apparently requires that I place CD #1 into my
> drive everytime before it will boot. What a pain in the butt! I
> thought that this kind of software protection went out with Win 95.
> Am I missing something here????

under |Extra| you can install all the stuff you need to your hard drive.
In your case this should at least be all star catalouges and the
extended minor planet data set.

> 2. Charts print out just fine, but it sure would be nice to have the
> basic info (such as the name) of the object centered in the chart.
> Is there a way to accomplish this?

There are two ways: First look at |Display| |Data shown|. There you
should click on "label" for all the objects you want to have names in
your map. Second you can add a caption to your legend with
|Display| |Legend|.

> 4. Perhaps the major issue that I'm having is the accuracy, or lack
> of accuracy that I'm getting on my charts. The Guide 8 manual
> cautions that there are several reasons why asteroids may vary from
> predicted location. And with the rarer less charted ones I can
> understand that. But at this stage I'm primarially trying to
> identify the brighter best known ones. And 20 to 30% of these are
> several minutes out of location. I have repeatedly resorted to
> marking the correct location of the asteroid viewed on my Guide 8
> printout, and then verifying the sighting by viewing The Sky rev 5.
> The Sky 5 is right on every time. It shows the asteroid to be where
> I plotted it. Is there a higher accuracy calculation that I'm not
> invoking? I can understand if both programs had the same error, but
> The Sky is accurate and Guide 8 isn't. Am I missing something here?

Which database did you use for minor planets? You can download
and import into Guide new datasets with |Extras| |Add MPC
comets/asteroids|. Then you have to set |Extras| |Use MPCORB|.

Also make shure that you use the latest update of Guide8 (from at
least November 2004). You can see your version at |Help| |About
Guide|.

Hope this helps and clear skies
Bernd


Bernd Brinkmann

Sternwarte Herne, #A18
Herne, Germany

e-mail: info@...
http://www.sternwarte-herne.de