Hi folks,

As I mentioned a few days ago, Guide had troubles with the new
six-digit asteroid numbers. (More specifically, it had troubles with
the way in which those numbers are "packed" into five bytes in certain
MPC files.) The version now described and downloadable from

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

fixes these problems.

Also (and perhaps more significantly), the new features for setting
the time/date and latitude/longitude on Meade scopes are now
implemented. I will be _very_ interested indeed to get feedback on
these; they haven't been tested on a wide variety of scopes, and Meade
scopes now come in at least four different "flavors" (from the viewpoint
of a computer controlling them).

There is also now a capability to set user-defined locations,
albeit not quite as slick as I'd ideally wish... but it's a start, and
I'm hoping it will provoke some ideas as to how this function ought to
be implemented. As you'll see, several other new items have been
added. Comments and bug reports are solicited.

I hope to post this as the "official" update soon (I feel that given
the MPCORB situation, that's something I _must_ do), so please let me
know if you encounter trouble with this!

-- Bill