Hi Josch,

(By the way, Lawrence, I think Josch means "finding" an A2.0 star
given its A2.0 catalog designation. This is usually something like
"A2 1050 3141592".)

My apologies; I looked into two different ways of solving this
problem, and didn't complete either of them at the time.

The first method was an on-line one. I had hopes that via something
resembling the process by which Guide downloads A2.0 stars from the
VizieR service, I could have Guide request the RA/dec of a particular
A2.0 star. That way, one could find an A2.0 star with an Internet
connection but without needing to have the A2.0 data on-line. As best
I can tell, VizieR doesn't provide that capability (though I'll ask
if it might be added). So at least for now, I'm stopped on that point.

The second method assumes you have the A2.0 data on your hard drive,
and have applied the method described at

http://www.projectpluto.com/update7.htm#ax0_direct

to display it. I've altered Guide so one can use Go To... Object
Name, and enter (for example) "A2 1050 6535897", and have Guide find
that star. (A similar capability may prove useful for UCAC-2, but
I've not gotten there yet.) You'll see this change the next time I
post an update on the Web site.

As Lawrence mentioned, one could (at one time) get A2.0 on a set
of eleven CD-ROMs from the US Naval Observatory, at no cost. The full
dataset consumes about 6.3 GBytes. USNO ran out of disks. I've done
a bit to keep the data circulating, both in eleven-CD and a two-DVD
form, still at no cost (except that you'll be asked to ship the disks
to somebody else when you're done with them). This is described at

http://www.projectpluto.com/a2_pass.htm

-- Bill