Hi Martin,

> Hello i have three questions which need to be answered.
> The first is, when running Guide8 in dos mode, should I be able to see
> all images/photographic plates? I have installed them to run from my
> hard drive, I have no problems seeing them while under windows but I
> can't see them in DOS mode.

In theory, you ought to be able to see those images in DOS mode.
I'm able to get it to work. _However_, that's in a DOS shell. In
"for-real" DOS (not a shell under Windows), things are apt to be different.

DOS Guide extracts the images by spawning a separate program to
decompress them. Both use a DOS extender. I don't _think_ this would
work in "for-real" DOS. But it's been many years since I had such a
setup. I think I have a (120 MByte) hard drive with DOS and Win3.1 installed
on it... might be hard to lay hands on, though!

Incidentally, if you fire up Windows Guide and see the images, then
you ought to be able to shut down to DOS mode, then see the images in
DOS Guide. That will work because the last few images will already be
sitting in Guide's folder (with .FIT extensions), and DOS Guide will
be able to show them.

> Third question, while in windows mode. how do I download additional
> images and catalogs?

To anticipate: the images and catalogues downloaded whilst in Windows
will still be visible when you go to DOS. That is, you can't actually
do the downloading from DOS Guide, but you can use the data you've
already downloaded.

The image downloading is handled from the Extras... DSS/RealSky Images
dialog. You first zoom in on the area of interest, getting a field that
exactly covers the image you want to produce. Go to that Images dialog,
and select the sort of DSS download you want (from DSS-1, or the first
Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (POSS-1), etc. Then click on "DSS from
Internet".

Be advised that it's best not to do this for very large fields. I'd
try it first for a field a few arcminutes on a side, then work your
way up. The downloads can be large.

Under Extras, there is also a "Get Star Catalog Data" option. Again,
you need to zoom in on the area of interest. Then select the star
catalog from which you want data. Again, it's best to start small,
although the data downloaded won't be anywhere near as huge as it
is for DSS images.

There's more discussion of both images and catalog downloads in the
user manual, in chapters 17a and 17b.

-- Bill