Thank you Bill. That was great information. Regarding DOS, I am running Windows 98SE and boot my machine to dos and access Guide8 after Mel Bartels Scope Drive is loaded.
So I gather that I am operating under a DOS shell. I may have to use one of my other laptops to run Windows 98SE and see if I have the same issue, however, the only other laptop doesn't have a cd-rom, is it possible to load both CD data on several floppy disks and load it to that machine that way?
Martin
   

--- On Thu, 27/5/10, Bill J Gray <pluto@...> wrote:

From: Bill J Gray <pluto@...>
Subject: Re: [guide-user] Three Questions
To: guide-user@yahoogroups.com
Received: Thursday, 27 May, 2010, 5:31 AM







 









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

























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