Hi Bill,

"If what you mean is "can I edit geonames.dat and add in my
own cities", the answer is Yes. Some comments on the format of
the file are given at

<http://www.projectpluto.com/random.htm#city_format>http://www.projectpluto.com/random.htm#city_format"

Yep, that's what I meant, I just couldn't remember geonames.dat. I
assume it doesn't matter if I enter Stonehenge, Machu Picchu, or
Babylon as long as I follow the format, right? Also, with another
program some time ago I forced place names important to me to the top
of the list by putting an ! in front of them. Will that work with
Guide, or witll it screw up the works?

About Delta-T, I only want to know about historical Delta-T for
eclipses. I'm no longer able to observe, which is why I turned a few
years ago to eclipse research using Guide. Is the following method
still workable without messing up anything _after_ 1620? I'm
including the following paragraph in a paper regarding some eclipses
at paleolithic sites in Ireland.

"I don't know if other programs may allow the user to change the
internal Delta-T, but to try the modified equation in Guide, enter
this line in
guide.dat: DELTA_T=#-10000,1620:1812,88.52,26.00; The # keeps the
default active. To use the modified equation only for the period
before 1620 without changing Guide's default Delta-T after 1620,
remove the #. Actually, you can substitute an earlier date if you
prefer, but there are reasons for my use of 1620."

I ran across an article by an Irish archaeoastronomer claiming to
have dated a paleolithic site to 3340 BCE from an eclipse found using
a Macintosh (excuse the language!) program. I read the article and
found it was written in 2002. Using Guide on my *PC* I show that the
claim is absolute nonsense, and that the software used was totally worthless.

I'll post an email here as soon as I get the paper finished and
uploaded. Guide users may get a kick out of it.

Larry


Laren Dart
http://ldart.got.net


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