This problem's been around for about a year now, and crops up from
time to time on this list, with people saying they no longer have
asteroids.

Whether this is ever solved or whether people just give in and resort
to using MPCORB, whilst people with updates over a year old have no
problem because it didn't occur then, I am not sure.

You should also not be able to see asteroids in Quick Info, for the
brightest asteriods to mag 14. Well, I currently only get (433) Eros
in that list.

Ed, ensure you've turned off MPCORB and set the date to around Jan
2006, maybe even slightly earlier, and see if you can find asteroids.
If my memory is working right, you should.

The thing is it seems some file called 2453600.ast, it is a JD epoch
for a range of dates, is the only one that'll be created, and any date
more than a year or so either side of that range of epochs will not be
shown. This file I believe autocreates depending on the true epoch,
except it doesn't for some people, why not I don't know, and neither
is it easy to understand why others don't get the same problem, either
some don't notice, have old versions of Guide 8, or have MPCORB in use
and switched on, is my guess.

Or it's something obscure like AMD users suffer but Intel ones don't
or something equally weird.

I've just thought one thing. It started happening about the same time
that the time and date system in the legend was significantly changed
in both it's nature and capabilities, though that might just be
coincidence, but if something is pointing to that for the date and it
ain't there no more...

The on CD asteroid stuff is getting a bit long in the tooth for some
asteroids, and MPCORB will always be more uptodate than that even if
you only download now and forget about it, so that's one solution.

Though I vaguely remember some bits of the More Info from the built in
asteroid data were more useful than for the MPCORB more info, or
rather had extra/different bits of info.

This error also started occuring the first time Guide was
fixed/updated to cope with the >100,000 asteroids patch MPC introduced.

I've seen no direct notice of it being fixed, and people who've noted
it in the past have never said that the problem went away, they just
used mpcorb as far as I can see.

John Greaves

--- In guide-user@yahoogroups.com, "Ed Wiley" <edwiley@...> wrote:
>
>
>
> Thanks Alan and Sebastià:
>
> Unfortunately, this does not seem to be the problem. I have not
> started using MPCORB. Asteroid settings on Display/Data Shown are
> "Fixed" mag "22" "label" and "red." No asteroids at any level.
> Perhaps I am missing something from the asteroid folder? Lots
> there, including a bunch of data in the subfolder "ASTEROID." I hate
> to reinstall before checking other solutions.
>
> Ed
>
> --- In guide-user@yahoogroups.com, Sebastià Torrell <sebtor@> wrote:
> >
> > control date of MPCORB downloaded.
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: Alan Cahill
> > To: guide-user@yahoogroups.com
> > Sent: Tuesday, October 03, 2006 6:21 PM
> > Subject: Re: [guide-user] Asteroid Problems
> >
> >
> > Hi Ed,
> >
> > Lets check the simple things first.
> > Are you using Mpcorb? If so, check that in extras it is ticked.
> > Otherwise it will only show built in asteroids.
> > What magnitude are you showing in Display Data Shown? If it is
> less that
> > 10, then you won't find many. Instead of using auto, try using
fixed..
> > say mag 17. Lots should show. That's one sure fire way of trying
> it out.
> >
> > All the best
> >
> > Alan
> >
> > In message <eftp96+sbrn@>, Ed Wiley <edwiley@>
> > writes
> > >
> > > Hi Bill: For some reason, probably my stupidity, I cannot get
> > > asteroids to display in Guide 8. (other labels seem display
fine.)
> > > I
> > > have tried various settings and now have asteroids on Auto, label,
> > > label by number. I know they have displayed before, perhaps some
> > > link
> > > to the database is broken?
> > >
> > > Thanks, Ed Wiley
> > >
> > >
> >
> > Alan Cahill (J94)
> > Abbeydale Observatory,
> > Gloucester.
> > UK
> > http://mountabbeydale.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk
> > Skype alcahill
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >
>