At 01:26 AM 4/28/2012, you wrote:

>Hi Laren,
>
>Is the cross hair center not supposed to be always in the center of the
>screen ?
>It is not that difficult to find it. You may try to change the color in the
>ticks, grids ... to get a little more constrast.
>
>Luc

Hi Luc,

Yes, the cross-hair is always at the center of the screen. When it's
turned on, it simply centers the screen wherever you click. But you
taught me something new, Luc, and thanks for that. I've been a Guide
user since 2000 but never knew you could do more than turn it on and
off with the icon. No color combination worked. You're right, it is
a question of contrast. The "Pick" feature works, but uses the same
color as the cross-hair and has the same contrast problem. I believe
a B/W toggle option would work in _any_ display mode regardless of
the background color. My use of Guide is in researching historical
eclipses, but I try to keep an eye out for anything which might help
observers. Pick is one of those "anythings" and might be useful in
planning to observe a later modern eclipse.

Bill mentioned Pick somewhere (?). It needs to be added in
guide.dat. if you want it. PICK_SYMBOL=e0,0,30; adds a white
circle 30 pixels in diameter. Open a field of 5 degrees centered on
Alcyone in the Pleiades. When you right click on a star, the info
dialogue opens with a white circle around the star. If you click
Next, the circle jumps from Alcyone to the star closest to
Alcyone. Click Next again and the circle jumps to the next closest
star. This doesn't add much unless you have a passion for white
circles. But if clicking does _not_ jump to the next closest star
each time, set Display|Stars to a fainter magnitude.

I started describing how Pick might be useful in planning
observations of a live future eclipse instead of the old dead ones a
few of us love so much. <G> But the post got too long, so I split it
and will try to post that separately, hopefully tomorow.

Laren