aavso_rwg May 20, 2006
--- In guide-user@yahoogroups.com, Bill J Gray <pluto@...> wrote:
>
> Hi folks,
>
> I've mostly just mumbled when asked about Guide 9. This is
> partly because Guide 9 has been "just around the corner" for a
> long time now; I keep running into one reason or another to
> delay it. I will continue to mumble about the schedule. It's
> been embarrassing to tell people it's due at such-and-such a
> time, only to find myself wrong each time.
>
> I can _definitely_ say this, though: people who order
> Guide 8 within six months of the release of Guide 9 will get
> an automatic free upgrade. (I've done this with each previous
> version: order Guide N just before the upgrade, and you get
> N+1 free of charge. A lot of people order without knowing an
> upgrade is about to be released, and could be justifiably
> annoyed if I asked them for another $30 or so just after
> shelling out money for the software.)
>
> The software itself will not differ tremendously from that
> provided with Guide 8 plus the update on the Web site. The
> datasets will be very different: most deep-sky catalogs have
> changed quite a bit since Guide 8 was released, and the
> asteroid data on the CDs is becoming woefully out of date.
> (Though 'mpcorb' provides a way around this.) I may be able to
> replace GSC-ACT with the final version of UCAC. If not, I
> should be able to replace it with UCAC-2, thereby giving us
> excellent star data over most of the sky.
>
> As was mentioned a few weeks back on this list, the
> variable star catalogs available now are a lot better than
> those from past years. A lot of errors have been cleaned up,
> and of course, some new variable stars have been found.
>
> I've been vacillating between offering Guide 9 on two (or
> three) CD-ROMs, and offering it on DVD. I'm now pondering
> offering it on _both_, though the DVD could obviously have
> room to contain some wonders missing from the CD-ROMs.
>
> -- Bill
>