Correction, Stellafane, etc.

Bill J. Gray Jul 23, 2000

Hi folks,

As Karen pointed out, I goofed on the URL. I didn't mean to
direct you to the main page, but rather to

http://www.projectpluto.com/guide8.htm

Regarding how the two CDs will work: I want this to be quite
flexible, which is one reason it's proving to be a bit of a pain.
You will indeed be able to run with two CD drives. Also with
one CD copied entirely to the hard drive and the other still on
CD-ROM; or with just the first CD-ROM. (The second CD is needed
_only_ for images and certain extra datasets. I'll probably move
a few large but rarely-used files, such as "asteroid elements for
1940 through 1990", to the second disk. That way, you can access
them on an "as needed" basis.)

In addition to this, you'll be able to copy part of the first
CD to the hard drive (a "minimal installation", probably still
about 11 MBytes); the entire first CD (about 680 MBytes); both
CDs (about 1360 MBytes); and, probably, one or two intermediate
options around 100 to 300 MBytes.

When you start Guide, it will be bright enough to look around
and see what data is available. It'll grab what it can from hard
drive, and what it can't find on a hard drive, it will look for
on a CD-ROM (or two CD-ROMs, on two-drive systems.)

With the "minimal" 11 MBytes installed, you could run with _no_
CDs at all. (You wouldn't have much data available to you... stars
to about mag 6 and the NGC and IC, and "more info" would be very
short. But you could do it.) And if you ran this way, and Guide
happened to note that two CD-ROM drives contained the two Guide 8
disks, you'd get absolutely everything.

Incidentally, an item that I admit is probably of limited interest
to a lot of people on this list... you may have heard that a
couple of days ago, the discovery of the first new satellite of
Jupiter in 25 years was announced. It's kinda nifty from a celestial
mechanics viewpoint; I've written a few words about it (and showed
how you can derive the orbit using Find_Orb) at

http://www.projectpluto.com/cassini.htm#jovian

And, last of all: I will be at Stellafane on Saturday, 29 July.
I'll be wearing a neon-orange hat of the sort we wear around here
in November to keep from being shot by deer hunters; it's _very_
visible. Between that and a name tag, you should have no trouble
in finding me.

-- Bill