EDITORIAL INFORMATION

Guide 4.0 can show the sky from a hemisphere (about a 180 degree view) down to a few arc-minutes. It handless both desktop planetarium tasks and detail oriented star chart tasks. It can be useful both to those new to the sky and to those with years of experience in astronomy. Guide can show data from the entire Hubble Guide Star Catalog, the PPM (Position and Proper Motion) catalog, the New General Catalog (NGC), the Index Catalog (IC) and the Principal Galaxy Catalog (PGC), and the General Catalog of Variable Stars (GCVS). Guide can display information (magnitude, spectral type, proper motion, position, type of variability, etc.) from these catalogs, as well as data from the Henry Draper (HD), WDS (Washington Double Star) and SAO (Smithsonian Astronomical Observatory) catalogs. For galaxies, data is shown from the PGC, ESO, Uppsala, Morphological and RC3 catalogs.

(Extracted from the press release).

OUR REVIEW

Here we have one of the most complete planetariums for computers. Guide can show almost 19 million objects, 15 million of them being stars. It also can show planets, the Sun, the Moon, as well as the four main satellites of Jupiter. We could reposition ourselves within the Solar System so as to, for instance, see the transit of Saturn in front of the Sun as seen from Uranus, which will happen on April 8th., 2669. It also can show some 10,000 asteroids, about 700 comets and some other new objects that can be introduced by giving their orbital elements. Besides this, the borders among the different constellations as well as their names are also included, and we can point out any object to get information on it, zoom the observed image, etc.

The on-line help system is very useful and covers any contingency. Its versatility allows it to animate the movement of the planets, print star charts for field observation, it also can be used outside thanks to its night vision mode (red on black), and control the movement of our telescope compatible with LX-2007 Sky Commander. To use the program, available in one single CD ROM, we will need a compatible PC computer equipped with 640 K of RAM memory, an adaptor EGA or better and the CD ROM reader. A mouse is also highly recommended, and a mathematical coprocessor is useful but not really necessary. It is easily installed from the CD ROM to the hard disk, though the data bases stay on the former.

In its latest version, Guide is an already mature and very complete product, full of possibilities for the amareur astronomers. A detailed handbook of 76 pages written by the author is included, although, in case any problems arise, it is possible to directly contact him to state any difficulties users may find.