http://members.csolutions.net/fisherka/astronote/plan/MoonPlan/MoonSpdtProje... This email is to announce an observation planning spreadsheet implemented in Microsoft Excel (2003) suitable for beginner or intermediate lunar observers. The spreadsheet contains a catalogue of approximately 2,600 lunar objects which can be sorted and filtered by the current position of the lunar terminator. Utilities are provided to predict on what dates and times a particular terminator position will occur in the 12 months following the current date and time. It is designed to quickly answer the question "What's on the terminator tonight?" The spreadsheet is not internationalized and assumes a Microsoft Windows U.S. date system. While this spreadsheet contains a good utility for locating favorable observing times for objects near the terminator on the Moon's near-side face between 0 and 90 degrees East or West lunar longitude, this spreadsheet is not suitable for high-precision planning for observing objects in libration areas on the lunar limb. This lunar observing spreadsheet will be of interest to instructors of introductory college astronomy courses, astronomy club lunar party organizers, and intermediate and beginner lunar observers. By using the full power of Excel's drill-down data filter feature, a variety of interesting lunar tours can be developed, e.g. - by geologic period, by crater size, by feature type, by bright ray crater, by dark halo crater, by dark-floor craters, by fractured floor craters, etc. Other features included in this lunar observing spreadsheet are a means to quickly move target lists to HTML tables for redistribution over the web. An article index and bibliography is included. A better existing alternative is the popular freeware Virtual Atlas of the Moon (VAM) by Patrick Chevalley and Christian Legrand. The project homepage and spreadsheet download site, which contains a detailed description of the catalogue's development, is listed above. Enjoy - Canopus56 __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com