Re: Make Ephemeris settings

Tomas Apr 24, 2012

Hi Bill, Peter

thank you for the suggestions - I would have never tried to put the MPC code into the lat field :d

However, for the Start value what I'm experiencing is actually that no matter what the last value was, when I open the dialog again, the Start value reverts to "2012 03 19" and it is a bit annoying having to change it every time. I'd like to know how I can (re)set it to something else, at this point I would be happy even with +0 - although I would prefer the following day's date in the YYYY MMM DD format.

Basically, I'd like to know how Find Orb determines the pre-populated values in the "Make Ephemeris" dialog - I would expect it to remember the last-used settings for all the fields but that doesn't seem to be the case (well, it seems to have remembered them at some point but now they don't change any more)

Tom

--- In find_orb@yahoogroups.com, Bill J Gray <pluto@...> wrote:
>
> Hi Tomas, Peter,
>
> pbirtwhistle wrote:
> > However, the logic seems to be to start the first ephemeris
> > position with the NEXT ephemeris interval, so for instance,
> > generating an hourly ephemeris using +0 at the moment I'm
> > typing this (at 14:39 UT) would generate an ephemeris
> > starting with 15:00 UT.
>
> True. You _can_ have the starting time be -1h to have it
> start at the preceding step. (You have a lot of flexibility
> in how times are entered, as described at
>
> http://www.projectpluto.com/update8d.htm#time_entry
>
> In general, one is best off with something unambiguous,
> such as a four-digit year and three-letter month. But the
> ability to say things like "start the ephemeris three days
> before that" or "six hours from now" can be quite useful.)
>
> As you mention, one can type in the MPC code in the 'lat'
> field. This is handy, if you know about it... but I should
> probably have the controls look something like
>
> Observer location:
>
> (o) MPC code [J95]
> ( ) Latitude [ ]
> Longitude [ ]
>
> ...i.e., you select a radio button to determine whether the
> MPC code or the lat/lon is used, with separate boxes in which to
> enter those quantities. I'll do that. It doesn't help much to
> have "nifty" features if people can't actually see them.
>
> -- Bill
>