Re: [find_orb] calculating ephemerides from orbital elements

Bill J Gray May 3, 2012

Hi Tomas,

> Could someone please point me to a source on how to calculate
> ephemerides for asteroids/comets based on the orbital elements,
> e.g. from the MPCOrb.dat - in case it makes a difference, these
> will need to include NEOs and FMOs

When you say "how to calculate", do you mean you want the
actual math behind such calculations? Or do you just need software
that can compute the ephemerides?

Handling NEOs probably _will_ make a difference; it will mean
that you'll need software that can numerically integrate the orbits,
perturbations correctly handled (instead of just doing a simple
two-body solution).

Unfortunately, all I have to offer in this area is a little
program for computing ephemerides using a two-body solution. I
wrote it to illustrate the use of my "basic astronomical functions"
source code library, and it's a command-line program (well-suited
to Windows, Linux, or OS/X, but without a GUI.) Probably not
what you want, given both its lack of perturbations and of a GUI.

-- Bill