Hi folks,

Regarding isophote control: Andrea Pelloni is right, I _did_ add some
code for this, but haven't hooked it into the user interface yet. The
code in question lets you set the intensity level, and have the isophotes
appear as 'filled shapes' (as they are by default) or as 'outlined shapes'.

To select these, you have to edit STARTUP.MAR, the file Guide reads
when it 'starts up' to know what its initial settings ought to be. This
file is described at

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

I've just expanded the part about line 48, which is where isophote
display data is stored. Load STARTUP.MAR in a text editor, alter this
line, and you can change isophote display. (And eventually, a less
clumsy way will be available!)

Masaki Kouda asked about the ZC and XC... the way to fix such things
is almost always to use it as a "user added dataset", and I have just
written the file to permit this. See

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

for a file to allow use of two versions of the ZC. (I first got the
ZC from the Astronomical Data Center, but this uses BD references rather
than ZC numbers. I had to access another version to get ZC numbers in
the file.)

Andre Germain wrote:

"...(T-Point is an expensive R&D effort unsuited for an accessible
product like Guide)."

This is not entirely true. In fact, I've done all the 'mathematical'
work required for such a system; see

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

for details. Actual use of it is still _extremely_ awkward (and limited
to encoder-based systems).

"...Guide might one day track artificial satelites via position
requests and maybe even velocities thru LX200 ?" I have some hopes of
doing that eventually, yes... I've even figured out a way, in theory,
to correct satellite orbits based on the tracking done by the scope.
But (as with so many of these projects) I've not had much time to work
on it yet.

Masaki Kouda passed on some thoughts from the Japanese Guide list...

"...4. When I want to set location, I want to CHOOSE city name,
not inputting name." Hmmm... an interesting thought. It is already done
for "Go To... City" in eclipse mode, so it may not be too hard to do.
You would probably have to select a country, then click on the city,
to make the list reasonably small.

"...5. Show Double Star Mark (But how ?)" I can think of many ways
to display doubles... actually getting the data into Guide may present
trouble, though. The WDS (Washington Double Star) catalogue is poorly
cross-referenced to other catalogues at present.

"...7. Fix problem about Help Printing." Noted. This has been a pain
for some time. I've posted 'work-arounds' at

http://www.projectpluto.com/faq_curr.htm#print_tables_more_info

But I do not really like any of them. (One possible 'work-around' will
involve having most of Guide's 'help' information handled through HTML,
so the Web browser can handle the entire process.)

About the missing star, SAO 76188, in Pleiades Cluster: to my knowledge,
this is the brightest star missing from Tycho, Hipparcos, and GSC. I
have hopes that Tycho-2 will repair this omission (as well as omissions
of some fainter stars.)

-- Bill