For no entirely apparent reason I've done a TDF so Hipparcos 2

ftp://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/pub/cats/I/311

can be used in Guide 8, or at least reasonably recent software updates thereof.

You need the TDF in the Guide directory, and the hip2.dat file in the Guide directory, or alternatively, change the full pathname on the first line after the word 'file '

Display can be altered through right click in the usual way, but currently it's on from 90 degrees and less fields with auto mag range, so wider fields don't show all of them, there's a mag limit which'll like match the inbuilt star display one. Hp magnitude is used as if it was V, which is nowhere near proper, especially for red stuff, but it gives as good idea of the visual mag as many other mags out there.

You can Goto TDF HIPPARCOS 2 too, just type the number when you've got the dialogue up.

Normally I have proper motion correction disabled, because I need to see those multiple epoch positions a lot of the time, but this is my first bash at doing one of the new proper motion corrections that Bill put into TDFs some time ago, so hopefully it kind of works.

Alt-J then entering 11 toggles proper motion correction on and off.

More Info Help includes the radians converted into RA and Dec to the default Guide precision. The proper motions are logged, plus their errors, and parallax too for no real reason except it's there, and d'ya know the readme doesn't say whether RA is cos(dec) or not. I'd guess it wasn't else it'd mention the fact, and likely Bill fixes for that in Guide. Hmm, I vaguely remember something about this long ago, because ucac2 raw is not RAcos(dec), and guide can correct proper motions for that, but ucac2 downloaded from vizier _is_ so corrected, and I think guide can correct proper motions for that data too.

The B-V and Hp (Hipparcos photometric magnitude) are used to give coloured stars, seems not too bad, in some places.

You can turn that off and have white stars by simply putting a # symbol in front of the line starting 'photo'.

It's a bit minimalistic, and doesn't quote the flags, because there's not really much can be said about it extra even if you knew all the flags, but it allows Guide users a quick eyeball comparison of the situation with respect to the built in Guide 8 original Hipparcos data. Labels can be toggled on via right click, Display, if you can't make out what star is what.

Alrighty, enough blather, here's the tdf.

Cut and paste the bits twixt the dotted lines into a text editor and save as hip2.tdf in the Guide directory, and remember to have hip2.dat as downloaded and ungzipped in the same place as the line file says it is, with full path if you do not intend to keep it in the Guide directory (it's an 8+ Mb download and a 30+ Mb files).

As far as I can tell, it does the thing. Wouldn't be surprised if I've missed a subtle point, mindst.

Cheers

John

John Greaves

---the next line is the first line of the tdf file---
file hip2.dat
title Hipparcos 2
RA H 16 13
units0 -1
ra p 52 8
pm_ra_unit .001
de d 30 13
units3 -1
de p 61 8
pm_de_unit .001
mag 130 7
photo V:130,7 B-V:153,6
text 1 6
~b 1 6 HIP %s\n\n
~r 16 13 RA 2000 %R\n
~r 30 13 Dec2000 %D\n\n
~b130 7 Hp %s +/- %[138,6]\n\n
~b 52 8 muRA %s +/- %[91,6] mas/y\n
~b 61 8 muDec %s +/- %[98,6] mas/y\n
~b 44 7 \nParallax %s +/- %[84,6] mas\n

pref HIP
epoch 2000
sort 1
type 6
label spaces
goto label
field 0.00 900.00
shown 7
end
---the previous line is the last line of the tdf file---