Hi Bill,

I discovered after my post the geomap does not drop out when disc 1
is in the CD drive. I had installed Eclipses/Ocultations to the HD.
When I checked after your post, there was no mark. I reinstalled it,
it didn't take, I unstalled and reinstalled it, and it took. This has
happened before when installing from the CD to my HD, but only
occasionally. I found it had happened again with "Detailed Cities" so
that's now cured. I can live with it.

Is it possible to search .ecu files? (Not necessarily in Guide, of
course, maybe a WP program?) Since I'm working with historical
eclipses, I sometimes run into a reference to a Chinese town which is
only listed in the "2 million cities" database, but I don't have a
clue to where it was/is. (The 1302BC eclipse in Anyang China was used
in the following.)

When zoomed in on Anyang at level 8, the larger database appears in
red. There is only the central cross in white, but not the name, to
indicate the location of Anyang on the basic geomap. Going to level 9
causes "Anyang" to appear in white. Going to level 10 to get a bit
more separation, five names surround the plotted point for Anyang.
These are given in the form "Name: see Anyang". For example, if a
reference is made to "an eclipse observed in Changte-fu" one could
look up Changte-fu in CITIES/CHINAT.ECU and find "Changte-fu: see
Anyang". Even knowing it's near Anyang would be a help.

There might be a problem finding more than a close location, though.
The plotted point for Anyang in the larger database is 2.2 miles
north of the plotted point in the geomap database. Since I don't
know the origin of the larger database, or how accurate the locations
are, it may have come from some historical source. The multiple names
appearing in the larger database surround many of the locations
shown, and may be historical names for given locations. (The ruins of
the Shang palace are, I believe, about two miles from Anyang.)

Bill, I probably should address these questions directly to you. I
seem to be the only one here working with historical eclipses, but I
posted here because I thought someone _might_ be interested.

---Larry


At 10:22 AM 9/12/2006, Bill J Gray wrote:

>Hi Larry,
>
>The current version on the Web site is (still) the 29 May 2006
>version. At some point, I'll be posting a "test" update that provides
>more "more info" comments on artificial satellites, shows proper motion
>vectors for UCAC-2 stars, and allows use of the current GCVS data for
>finding variable stars and getting "more info" comments... not quite
>ready to post that, yet.
>
>For the missing geomap: I'd try putting the first Guide CD into the
>CD-ROM drive. I'll wager that causes the map to return when you zoom
>in, because Guide will then find the map data on the CD. I'd then look
>under Extras... Install to Hard Drive, and make sure that the
>"Eclipse/Occultations" item is checked. Once that's done, the map data
>will be copied to hard drive, and you can pull out the CD.
>
>This should also clear up the missing "Anyang" problem.
>
>-- Bill

Laren Dart
http://ldart.got.net
photography and writing