--- In guide-user@yahoogroups.com, Bill J Gray <pluto@...> wrote:

> Mark (and others interested in this feature): what sort of
> link(s) were you thinking of? Something along the lines of "select
> an object in DSP and get information from Guide about it", or
> "just have Guide center on that object", or "make a list of
> objects in DSP and show them in Guide", or "click on an object
> in Guide and have DSP show info about it", or... ?
>
> -- Bill
>

Well, I can describe a couple of cases, perhaps that will make it clearer. But I wonder if some sort of ASCOM interface to Guide might be a general answer to this and other feature requests.

-- For some reason, on a nice clear night, I have nothing to look at and check a planner and see that there are 3 asteroid occulations coming up in a few days. I wonder if I can see the target star now, and enjoy the quandary of 'which star is which?" early. So the planner holds a location, time and some database reference while Guide knows what can be seen now. Thru some click-magic, etc, I transfer the info from a planner to Guide and take a look at the current star picture, with support from Guide identifying the background. Similarly there is a comet expected to achieve peak brightness next month, which I have noted in a planner, what's it look like now?

-- Essentially there is an event list that I might want to look at early and certainly want to look at before it expires. I don't expect a planner to carry access to dozens of stellar databases, I'd like it to be somewhat of a notepad of stuff to do. I don't expect Guide to track expirations of events (Venus transit, conjunctions). While I can write software, I think it's smarter for me to create the kind of planner I'd use and leave Guide to the expert. Having some way, thru a script file, API or some data file to do so would be nice. After reading some of the replys here and thinking about tools such as AutoIt, this may already be possible with some effort.