ASO award/comets/Quaoar

Bill J Gray Dec 23, 2002

My thanks to all for the many kind words about the ASO Award!
I assure you, my ego is expanding by the moment... ;-)

James, about comets visible at sunrise and sunset: I and
billions of my fellow Northern Hemisphere denizens witnessed this
in spectacular fashion on 26/27 March 1996, when Hyakutake passed
within a few degrees of Polaris, then at (brief run of Guide to
refresh my memory) about mag 1. No matter when you stepped out,
sunrise, sunset, or midnight, it was "all Hyakutake, all the
time." Made it easier to tell people where to look, too.

About adding Quaoar: you _can_ use the methods described by
Oliver and James. This has the benefit that you only have to
download small files replacing a few asteroids.

An alternative is to replace _all_ asteroids, not just a
few, using the MPCORB list of currently-known asteroids. This
is described and download URLs given at:

http://www.projectpluto.com/mpcorb.htm

This also gives you some details as to the pluses and minuses
of using MPCORB instead of Guide's built-in asteroid data. Exactly
how you use it in Guide is described on page 50 of the user manual.

-- Bill