NAME:
  plast
 PURPOSE:
  Support routine for calling ``PLAST'' to get asteroids on an image.
 DESCRIPTION:

 CATEGORY:
  Astrometry

 CALLING SEQUENCE:
  plast,jd,ra,dec,width,height,bmaglim,rmaglim,outfile

 INPUTS:
  jd      - Julian date of field.
  ra      - Right ascension of center of field (J2000)
              input can be in radians (double,float) or
              a string HH:MM:SS.S  (see RAPARSE for valid syntax).
  dec     - Declination of center of field for (J2000).
              input can be in radians (double,float) or
              a string +DD:MM:SS.S  (see DECPARSE for valid syntax).
  width   - Width of field to extract (arcsec).
  height  - Height of field to extract (arcsec).
  outfile - File name for the results of the extraction.

 OPTIONAL INPUT PARAMETERS:

 KEYWORD INPUT PARAMETERS:
  maglim  - Limiting V magnitude of asteroids to extract (default=30).
  title   - Internal title for plast extraction (default='auto plast').
  obscode - Observatory code (default = '688', Lowell Observatory).

 OUTPUTS:

 KEYWORD OUTPUT PARAMETERS:

 COMMON BLOCKS:

 SIDE EFFECTS:

 RESTRICTIONS:

 PROCEDURE:

   If the accelerator program has previously been run, (plastset), there
   will be a file, allsky.plast, in the current directory.  If this file
   exists, the new mode extraction is enabled and doplast is run instead
   of plast.  To force the old style plast even with this accelerator file,
   use the /oldplast flag.

 MODIFICATION HISTORY:
  97/11/24, Written by Marc W. Buie, Lowell Observatory
  2000/09/22, MWB, modified for new version of plast
  2002/08/16, MWB, added transparent option to use the new plast procedure
                      for KBO searching.
  2002/09/09, MWB, added support for string obscode values