Oh, that's why I'm getting muddled! I should've looked at this proper
straight off I suppose.

Julian, this file

http://www.projectpluto.com/extras.htm#gcvs_2004

should let you see iii.dat data, as used by iii.idx to go to, this is
a tdf which will display gcvs stuff as well as internal gcvs stuff...

...HOWEVER, as Bill said t'other day, they've ever so slightly messed
about with the format for no readily apparent reason, at least it
appears to be the case when I check the latest iii.dat against my copy
of iii.dat from a few month back.

Basically every column >86 needs to be column - 1 in value, or looking
at the GCVS TDF on me hard drive, and correcting the relevant columns
by decrementing one place, something like this should work...

file iii.dat
title GCVS
RA H 38 2
RA M 40 2
RA S 42 4
de d 46 3
de m 49 2
de s 51 2
mag 67 5
text 9 9
~b 9 9 \n%s\n\n
~b 55 10 %s\n\n
~r 38 8 RA 2000 %R\n
~r 46 7 Dec2000 %D\n\n
~r 53 0 : position to 1s RA and 0.1' Dec
~r 53 0 * position to 0.1'
~r 53 0 ' position to 1m RA and 1' Dec
~r 54 0 * position is simply 1950 position precessed\n\n
~r 54 0 \n\n
~b 66 0 Max Mag :
~b 66 0 > faint limit
~b 66 0 < bright limit
~b 66 0 ( amplitude
~b 67 8 %s
~b 1 1 \n\n
~b 76 0 Min Mag :
~b 76 0 < bright limit
~b 76 0 ( amplitude
~b 77 8 %s
~b 1 1 \n\n
~b 88 2 Passband : %s\n\n
~r 91 11 Epoch : JD24%s
~r102 0 : uncertain
~r102 0 + may be later
~r102 0 - may be earlier
~r102 5 %s
~r 1 1 \n\n
~r110 20 Period %s\n\n
~r131 4 Rise / Eclipse Portion : 0.%s\n\n
~r135 0 * No Totality\n\n
~r135 0 \n
~b137 17 %s\n\n
~b168 10 %s\n\n
~r178 0 * Note in GCVS Vol V\n

epoch 2000
type 6
sort 1
label spaces
goto spaces
goto case
field 0 40
mag lim 167
shown 1
end

If you use that, latest version of Guide 8, and latest iii.dat with
working iii.dix, you'll get inbuilt Guide 8 CDS, full GOTO via GOTO
Variable, GO TO TDF GCVS <variable name> as a secondary option, though
not needed, but whichever way you GO TO, there'll be a labelled star
to click on for more info, very often the same object twice, but in
this instance it'd likely be v1279 sco and hk lup shown together.

It ain't satisfactory, but it's usable.

It's just the way things are. If Bill finished and released Guide 9
tomorrow, shipped all the dvds or blueray discs (maybe 2 Gig memory
sticks might be cheaper distro than that route soon ;) ) or whatever,
then the day after half a dozen people would update their datasets in
weird ways. It's happened afore, it'll happen again.

Cheers

John

--- In guide-user@yahoogroups.com, Bill J Gray <pluto@...> wrote:
>
> Hi Julian,
>
> "... It is still strange though that when I looked up V1279,
> HK Lup and the GSC star popped up."
>
> Nothing strange about it; it's exactly what I would have
> expected to have happen.
>
> The "new feature" only ensures that you can "go to" the new
> variables; they aren't actually _displayed_. (Except possibly
> as a user-added dataset.) The display is exactly what it's
> always been, no changes whatsoever. In the actual universe,
> there is one star there, known to us humans by the various
> names HK Lup, V1279 Sco, and GSC 7851 143.
>
> If I'd had the time to do it, Guide 8.0 would have been
> released with it "knowing" that GSC 7851 143 = HK Lup. You'd
> see one star, and could click on it and be told its identifier
> in both catalogs. I didn't do that for various reasons, one of
> which was that the variable star catalogues were not at all
> exact; making such identifications would have been quite iffy.
>
> As a result, one frequently sees variables as "double stars":
> one from GCVS, one from GSC. (And sometimes duplicates from
> A2.0 or B1.0 or UCAC-2, or all of these.) I've had various ideas
> for fixing all of this, but none that I deemed very workable.
>
> -- Bill
>