Hello Setphen.

The Add comet/asteroid problem you mention is disturbing. One way around it
for Minor planets is to download the MPCORB data file from the MPC. and the
TDF file from Project Pluto.
(http://www.projectpluto.com/update7b.htm#mpcorb} You then can click on "Use
MPCORB Data" in the EXTRAS box and get the very latest data for the
asteroids without filling your comets file with all of those asteroids. The
program does slow down quite a bit, as Bill explains on the web site, but
you get the latest orbital data.

Bob Elliott
750 Fall Creek



At 11:32 PM 1/21/00 +1000, you wrote:

>Hi all,
>
>I've had a couple of issues nagging me for a while now and I was going to
>send a 'help' email to Bill to sort it out, but now that I am on this list,
>I might take advantage of this expanded help group.... :)
>
>Back in early December, I downloaded the 6 asteroid/comet orbital elements
>files on the CFA webstite hoping to update the elements resident in Guide (I
>am an active minor planet occultation observer and I was hoping to improve
>on the accuracy of occultation paths). I installed them by placing the
>files in the Guide directory and selecting Add MPC Comets/Asteroids as per
>the instructions.
>
>However, Guide seems to have taken all the objects to be comets. When I
>select 'Go To - Comet' they are all listed there. What I find a little more
>disturbing is that Guide plots these MPC asteroids ALONGSIDE the normal
>asteroid markers for the same objects - that is I now have 2 Juno's that are
>actually quite a long way apart (like 10's to 100's of seconds of arc
>apart). I believe that it is the MPC objects (which are labelled
>differently and independently of the labelling selection) that are plotted
>incorrectly. How do I know? Several minor planet occultations predicted by
>Edwin Goffin for this part of the world are well reflected in Guide using
>the older asteroid marker while the MPC markers may miss the star by many
>seconds of arc.
>
>I think curing the double asteroid problem is easy (delete the MPC sourced
>lines in comets.dat - please let me know if this is the wrong thing to do -
>I'm not that confident with this sort of thing). I am assuming that this
>was not the intended effect of the 'orbital elements update' routine - so
>how do I do it correctly ?
>
>The recent discussion re crossreferencing is quite interesting. I was
>wondering how Bill manages to crossreference difficult catalogues like the
>Washington Double Star list. It must be prone to errors. (Recently while
>checking on an asteroid occultation in March for New Zealand that the WDS
>reference was not for the star in question but the data is correct in the
>actual WDS).
>
>Thanks in advance,
>
>Stephen Kerr
>Rockhampton , QLD
>Australia.
>
>
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