Re: FIND_ORB Input Data

toadatrix Jun 3, 2004

I did get your Excel conversion program to work. However, I notice
that it seems to exclude all observations before 1990. This leaves
411 observations out of the original file which had about 684 (that
number may not be exactly correct). I also had to manually delete
the first two lines of the .rwo file to get your conversion to work.

I then ran your converted file of 411 observations from 1990 forward
through Bill's wonderful Find_Orb program. I used the Auto Solve
button which nearly always works for me. It will start out using
only 54 observations and slowly (took maybe 5 minutes on my machine)
work its way up to using all 411. I got the following when I
clicked on Save Elements:

Orbital elements:
107
Perihelion 2006 Dec 17.438570 TT
Epoch 2003 Oct 8.0 TT = JDT 2452920.5
M 182.77761 (2000.0) P Q
n 0.15193461 Peri. 309.60847 -0.54250688 -
0.83979362
a 3.4782829 Node 173.14992 0.81426583 -
0.53178302
e 0.0792483 Incl. 10.04688 0.20653672 -
0.10933199
P 6.49 H 7.3 G 0.15 q 3.2026346
From 411 observations 1990 Jun. 30-2003 Oct. 8; RMS error 1.262
arcseconds

Note that my RMS is about double yours, but I am using all 411
observations.

I really like your conversion program. Could you fix it to do a
couple of things:

1) Allow the user to specify the name of the input file and its
location on his machine.
2) Include all the observations, not just those after 1990.
3) Automatically handle the first two header lines of the input
file.

Thanks for the work on your conversion program. I hope you'll clean
it up a little as I would use it for sure. Bill, I hope you'll
comment on Find_Orb and how we should best be using it. Thanks to
all of you.

--- In guide-user@yahoogroups.com, "Masaki Kouda" <fp6m-kud@a...>
wrote:
> Hello "toadatrix" (?)
>
> Thank you for introduce the "Ast Dys" site. It provides great
observation data !
> I created convert program using Excel-VBA, and I put it on my site
as:
>
> http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~fp6m-kud/guide_e.htm#astdys
>
> Converted file much for dataset like MPC format.
> When I try to use it by Find_Orb, the result was as below:
> ----------
> Orbital elements from Find_o32
>
> 107
> Perihelion 2006 Dec 8.911817 TT
> Epoch 2003 Oct 8.0 TT = JDT 2452920.5
> M 183.78636 (2000.0) P Q
> n 0.15218226 Peri. 308.70867 -0.52961904 -
0.84798210
> a 3.4745083 Node 173.17498 0.82231240 -
0.51927747
> e 0.0796771 Incl. 10.04953 0.20810089 -
0.10619445
> P 6.48 H 7.0 G 0.15 q 3.1976694
> From 54 observations 1999 Oct. 8-2000 Mar. 5; RMS error 0.689
arcseconds
>
> Keplerian elements at epoch 53200 (MJD) from "Ast Dys"
> a (AU) 3.47871
> eccentricity 0.079053
> inclination 10.048
> Asc. node 173.147
> Arg. perih. 309.693
> M (deg) 225.212
>
> elements set from Guide8 build-in dataset
> Epoch of elements JD 2453000.5 (2003 12 27 0:00)
> Semimajor axis 3.4784187 AU
> Eccentricity 0.0792006
> Inclination of orbit 10.0470602 degrees
> Argument of perihelion 309.6348146 degrees
> Long. ascending node 173.1485731 degrees
> Mean anomaly 194.9020582 degrees
> ----------
>
> But 2nd time and after, Find_Orb does not work file. I don't know
why...
> Everytime Find_Orb use 6-observations on top.
> I need to confess that I don't know how to use Find_Orb software.
> Please try it, and let me know how to use.
>
> Masaki Kouda, Japan