Hi John, Clay, all,

John beat me to this one. I noticed UCAC-3 had been added to
VizieR late last night, got it "almost" working, but had to catch
some sleep. I was able to return to the problem this afternoon,
and found John's files.

To clarify a bit: this will be analogous to the situation with
A2.0 and UCAC-2. Both of those datasets are available on CD or DVD.
Interested citizens have copied the entire datasets to their hard
drives. You can then display the datasets without needing an Internet
connection.

_However_, these datasets are also available piecemeal over VizieR.
One can zoom in on an area of interest, click on the relevant toolbar
button or menu entry in Extras... Get Star Catalog Data, and get just
the stars needed to cover that area. It is this latter approach that
John has just implemented. (It's the _only_ way to get certain datasets
such as SDSS or GSC-2.x or 2MASS, which aren't distributed on media.)

Clay, in your case, you'll eventually be running with UCAC-3 data
copied to your hard drive. "Eventually" should be in the next few
weeks, I'd think, depending on when the DVDs are shipped by USNO.
In the meantime, you may want to play around with John's system a bit.
(And I will post a "complete" TDF in a bit.)

As it happens, UCAC-3 _will_ be provided on a double-sided DVD,
by USNO, and Guide 8 will be able to display that. I can say this with
some confidence, because USNO kindly provided me with a few square
degrees of the data, enough to test out my code. Reasonably soon,
I've hopes of posting an update that will enable display of UCAC-3 from
the hard drive. (If you're a programmer interested in accessing UCAC-3,
then the following source code may be of use to you:

http://www.projectpluto.com/ucac3.htm

More info on UCAC-3 is provided at

http://www.usno.navy.mil/USNO/astrometry/optical-IR-prod/ucac

Buried in the 'readme' file is this comment: "...Requests for the
data DVD should be sent to ucac3 <at> usno <dot> navy <dot> mil ".

It sounds as if it'll still be a while before the DVDs are shipped.

If you're on a CD-only system and want this data, please send me
your mailing address. I have already had one such request. My plan
is to put the data on seven CDs. I'll send it to you at no charge,
on the condition that you be willing to copy the data, then mail it
on to someone else who wants it. This "pass-it-along" scheme is similar
to that used for copying A2.0 and UCAC-2, as described at

http://www.projectpluto.com/a2_pass.htm

-- Bill