The following uses features in Guide 8, but they are usually updated in the Guide 7 executables which are a free download via the website (look under Help->About Guide for url) if you haven't the latest, and about a meg or so zipped. Just download and unzip it to your Guide directory as per webpage instructions.
IMPORTANT: You must have your location setup in Guide to be the same as that for TOM1, ie approximately W 88 degrees and N 41.5 degrees, to ensure you are searching in the same dark time period as TOM1 was taking measurements at.
NOW, first comes the etb file. I've looked through the .cal files and found all the dates. They range from about .2 days duration to 0.4 or so, so I've taken the rough midpoint of the range and generated this etb, which you cut, paste into a text editor, then save into the Guide directory as filename.etb , with filename being up to yourself.
As can be seen, the syntax is quite simple and this can be used as a template for future data CDs: just look up the Julian Day dates in the .cal files and take a midpoint.
-------------------cut from below line ;e DS23 Observing Nights DS 23 Observing Nights ^2452247.85 //j2452247.85^ ^2452250.85 //j2452250.85^ ^2452251.85 //j2452251.85^ ^2452252.85 //j2452252.85^ ^2452263.85 //j2452263.85^ ^2452264.85 //j2452264.85^ ^2452278.75 //j2452278.75^ ^2452287.75 //j2452287.75^ ^2452296.75 //j2452296.75^ ^2452299.70 //j2452299.70^ ^2452307.70 //j2452307.70^ ^2452310.70 //j2452310.70^ ^2452311.70 //j2452311.70^ ^2452312.75 //j2452312.75^ ^2452313.75 //j2452313.75^ ^2452319.70 //j2452319.70^ ^2452344.65 //j2452344.65^ ^2452350.65 //j2452350.65^ ^2452382.65 //j2452382.65^ --------------------------------------cut ends at line above
You launch Guide, and follow the menues TABLES->Miscellaneous Tables , then look for "DS23 Observing Nights" in the dialogue box, then select that.
You get a list of the dates. You select one with one mouse click.
Guide will automatically go to the right date for you and you can stay at that date for the rest of the procedure till you change it.
UNDER the menu item HELP->Quick Info you will see that Guide generates a list of asteroids visible to a limiting magnitude. Mine defaulted to 11.0, the comets to 14.0.
Take a text editor and look at the file startup.mar, in the Guide directory, this is the file that returns Guide to the state where you last left it. Probably best to make a backup copy of the file first.
In my system line 61 starts with the key "quickinf" and contained the numbers 110 and 140, which were the aforementioned limiting magnitudes in tenths of a magnitude. Edit this so that the asteroids value, 110, is now 140, giving 14 as a limiting magnitude, which should suffice, or 145 if you like, but that'll give you more asteroids to wade through, or possibly 135 which will give you less asteroids and is safely above the limiting magnitude of the data. The numbers are at line 61 (or whatever line in Guide 7 if different, as long as the word quickinf is at line start), reflect the limiting mag quick info works to, so you can work it out for yourself if your defaults differ.
You save your new startup.mar and this value should be set until you change it by hand again in a text editor.
NOW, you are at your date. You go to HELP->Quick Info and you get a bunch of details showing positions on the sky for solar system objects. You scroll down to asteroids.
There you see all the asteroids about mag 14.0 (say) listed. Their RA and Dec are given, and should be linkable, such if you click on these positions you jump to that place. Remember, you've already set date.
Latest versions colour code these links green for visible as it's night, yellow for twilight zone, and red for it's daylight, for that time and location. Also a constellation code is given too.
So, you just scroll down or pagedown key down and look for objects between dec say +5 and +10 that are in Tau or Ori or Mon or CMi or Cnc or Leo or Vir or wherever and are coded green, or possibly yellow for nights where Tom did a long run, and select appropriate ones and jump to that part of the sky. Ensure that data shown lets asteroids be visible to limiting magnitude required and zoom in to half a degree or so. If you find likely candidates you can zoom in or out as convenient.
Then what?
Well, as Michael Koppelman pointed out, you can get the details for the approx. 94,500 stars on CD 23 by running wsv3.pl via
perl wsv3.pl < collected.big > output.dat
or similar,
if you set the following variable in it to zero:-
$min_valid = 30;
make it
$min_valid = 0;
(it is to the top of the script)
Also remove and/or put a hash in front of the following lines to the bottom of the script:-
$ws = $ws/sqrt($nok*($nok-1.0));
if ($ws > 0.000 && $ws < 0.001) { $ws = 0.001; }
if ($ws > -0.001 && $ws < 0.000) { $ws = -0.001; }
Then you cut and paste the following TDF to your Guide directory, name it what you wish, words following the # sign are comments on the command for that line. You will need to read some of them to understand the data readouts in Guide.
------------------cut from next line file ds23all.dat # name you have given to the large data file title TASS CD 23 Objects # Name to select in Toggle User Datasets' Dialogue RA H 18 8 units0 -2 # ra is in decimal degrees de d 27 8 text 1 6 # label, here the running number in collected.big ~b 1 6 TASS CD23 %s\n\n # This and below dictates what More Info shows ~r 18 8 RA2000 %R\n ~r 27 8 DEC2000 %D\n\n ~c 36 5 Vmag %s\n ~r 36 5 Vmag %s ~r 43 4 sigma %s\n ~c 48 5 Imag %s\n ~r 48 5 Imag %s ~r 55 4 sigma %s\n ~c 9 3 From %s obs pairs\n #pref TASS23 # remove 1st # if you want labels prefixed epoch 2000 sort 1 type sCfed6c2;e0,0,16; # a sky blue circle centred on position in Guide 8 goto spaces goto case label spaces field 0 20 # visible at only 2 degree and smaller fields. shown 1 end --------------------end cut at above line
You will have any and all TASS objects from CD 23 plotted in Guide for you to compare to the asteroid's position.
Right Mouse Click and More Info will give you average info on the TASS object except dates, you will have to use the running number (default label here) and collected.big to research that.
Labels can be toggled on and off via the Display button in the More Info dialogue. Incidentally, specific objects in the file can be GOne TO via the menu route Go To->TDF Object then selecting TASS CD 23 objects from the dialogue box. Entering the running number from collected.big for the object goes straight to it.
As Patrick Wils has shown, a row of several TASS objects of very few observations and no nearby stars of an appropriate V magnitude could well be an asteroid, when that asteroid is lying quite near.
Double checks need to be made sometimes with fainter stars from the GSC2.2 and/or USNO A2.0. People who have internet access will find that Guide will now automatically download data from these catalogues for a field -WARNING- ensure your field size is as small as possible before doing this, for example 2 arcminutes, as the larger the field size the more immense the amount of data you will receive!!! See your manual, or the website for details if upgrading an old version of 7 via downloads.
Although a roughly median time is being investigated for a particular observation run, the asteroid should be close enough in a one or even half degree field of view to be visible at the same time. Don't necessarily expect the asteroid to agree exactly with the TASS positions, but agreement ought to be good to a few arcmins if not far better when time is fine tuned from collected.big data (you only need to do that if you are lucky enough to get a match). Alternatively you could use the Animation option to step the asteroid through time. Use small stepsizes, say around an hour, to check back and fourth for a couple of hours either side of the midpoint time being used. Remember to reset time to the midpoint when done.
You may jump to an asteroid between +5 and +10 degrees and RA limits that are nowhere near a TASS CD 23 field, it is just as quick to scoot past these as figure out the exact TASS fields, but you could make yourself a shortlist of field positions from the .cal files first if you wished. In practice it turns out that there are quite a few objects between these declinations and of the right magnitude which are nowhere near TASS 23 fields, so this preliminary exercise may well save time in the end.