Thanks Alan.....
The data appears to accumulate rather than being replaced with updated comet
information. Old designations, and comets that are no longer observable
continue to stay on the list and it is getting to the point where it is
simply not manageable.

I do remember one time where I did delete the "comets.dat" file or the
contents within it and lost the ability to update via the MPC Observable
comets link, so I am a bit hesitant to mess with that too much.

I appreciate the suggestion and may try doing just this on my backup
computer first to see if I can refresh the data by deleting all of the
existing contents. Thanks.

Clay
_____
Dr. P. Clay Sherrod
Arkansas Sky Observatories
MPC H45 - Petit Jean Mountain South
MPC H41 - Petit Jean Mountain
MPC H43 - Conway West
http://www.arksky.org/

----- Original Message -----
From: "Alan Cahill" <neoprog@...>
To: <guide-user@yahoogroups.com>
Cc: "Bill Gray" <pluto@...>
Sent: Monday, February 23, 2009 4:51 AM
Subject: Re: [guide-user] Incorrect comet Table data


> Hi Clay,
>
> I'm not sure if this is what you want, but duplicate objects frequently
> show up in in Guide as double X's.
> I'm not sure if this happens with Soft02, but certainly with 'Update
> comets and Asteroids it does.
> The way to get rid of those is to edit 'Comets.dat', wipe out all of the
> data in that file, and importantly the top line should say 0.
> Then only data from either MPCorb or the standalone asteroid data base
> will be displayed.
> Then once you update through 'Update comets and asteroids', that new
> data is showed.
>
> Hope this helps.
>
> Best Regards
>
> Alan
>
> In message <001001c99597$8dd003b0$4301a8c0@your727a0a4e7c>, P. Clay
> Sherrod <drclay@...> writes
>>
>> Hello Bill and others....
>> Once again, my "Comet Table" has become a mess of duplicates, old
>> nomenclature, and discarded comets.
>> I use the frequent updates "Observable Comets" for Guide 8 to
>> update about
>> every 2-3 days for the latest comets and typically this works fine.
>> Only,
>> the old designations remain when comets are changed to periodic,
>> etc.
>>
>> I now have at least 30 duplicates, comets that are long gone and
>> not
>> observable and many other duplicate and incorrect entries.
>> In addition, the new listings for Observable Comets for Guide 8
>> (and others)
>> NOW finally shows comet P33/Daniel. However, when adding the new
>> database
>> via "EXTRAS/Add MPC Comets..../Add MPC Comets [link], as we have
>> done for
>> years, Comet Daniel does NOT show up on GO TO Comets nor on the
>> Comet Tables
>> list....it does show up in the Edit Comets file however.
>>
>> I manually entered it and can locate it that way via coordinates,
>> but that
>> is not the way Guide is supposed to function.
>>
>> As I have always done, I am using the file:
>> http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/iau/Ephemerides/Comets/Soft02Cmt.txt
>> which many
>> others use to frequently update.
>>
>> About a year ago Bill told us how to clear out the corrupt data
>> base and add
>> a fresh set of comet data that corresponds to the latest data set
>> from MPC.
>>
>> Two questions:
>>
>> 1) how can I purge all of the incorrect comet database and
>> re-establish ONLY
>> those listed on the newest MPC database so that the comet entries
>> will be
>> correct?
>>
>> 2) is there any way possible to "delete existing entries" prior to
>> each
>> update from the aforementioned MPC site so that ONLY THE LATEST
>> data is
>> showing?
>>
>> Either I am doing something wrong, and have been for the past 10
>> years with
>> Guide, or there simply needs to be a better way of keeping these
>> database
>> entries current and clean.
>>
>> Any help is appreciated.
>>
>
> Alan Cahill (J94)
> Abbeydale Observatory,
> Gloucester.
> UK
> http://mountabbeydale.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk
>
>
>
>
>
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