I thought I'd let everyone know what worked for me.
Suppose that you go to "Extras > Asteroid Options > Add MPC Comets/
Asteroids" and then you "Click to download and add distant objects
(TNOs, Centaurs, etc.)". I was wrong when I said that these only
appear on-screen when "Use MPCORB" is selected. What Guide does is
download soft02di.txt and adds its contents to comets.dat. So editing
comets.dat does successfully get rid of all these downloads, but you
have to do it smart.
At the very bottom of the file, I can see that it has "Added 708,
replaced 0 from soft02di.txt" at a particular date and time. And at
the very top of the file, the number "758" indicates the current total
number of entries. So before I made this mistake, I had 50 entries.
That included 48 comets that came preloaded in Guide, plus 2 asteroids
I intentionally loaded myself from MPC 8-line-format orbit files
(elements.txt files from Find_Orb, actually). I knew that these two
were 2007 WD5 and 2008 TC3.
So anyway, I found and deleted the 708 lines that got added, then I
changed the number at the top to "50", and saved the file. Apparently
you don't even have to restart Guide, because when you bring it to the
front it has to redraw the screen, and at that point all those
unwanted objects disappear.
Thanks Alan, for pointing me to the right file.
Cheers,
Andy
-------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Andy Puckett
puck@...
Postdoctoral Fellow 907-786-1838
University of Alaska Anchorage SCI 221
-------------------------------------------------------------
On Oct 30, 2008, at 1:00 AM, Alan Cahill wrote:
> Hi Andy,
>
> If it is just the ones downloaded, then edit comets.dat in the Guide
> directory. If you clear all of the data in the file, then the number
> at
> the start of the file must be changed to zero. Then none of those
> asteroids will show up.
>
> Hope that helps.
>
> Best Regards
>
> Alan
>
> In message <geanfq+smj4@...>, Andrew Puckett
> <afawp1@...> writes
> >
> > One of my students accidentally downloaded about 700 new asteroids
> > into Guide. (Extras > Asteroid Options > Add MPC Comets/Asteroids,
> > then one of the "Click to Download" links, probably "distant
> > objects".
> > They all look like TNOs, Centaurs, etc.) At least, that's what I
> > assume they did. They are using custom mpcorb.dat files generated
> > by
> > Find_Orb, but they are seeing a bunch of additional asteroids when
> > they have the "Use MPCORB" box checked.
> >
> > There are far too many of them to delete individually from within
> > Guide. Is there a quick way to get rid of them all? I'm guessing
> > that deleting the downloaded file from the Guide folder won't do
> > it.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Andy Puckett
> >
> Alan Cahill (J94)
> Abbeydale Observatory,
> Gloucester.
> UK
> http://mountabbeydale.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk
>
>
>
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