revans
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 09/26/05
Posts: 1517
Loc: Fitchburg, MA
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My knowledge of asteroids is limited and mostly related to their spectra. If I identify an asteroid, its probably going to be on a deep sky image I've made. I guess this would prompt me to try to identify it in a planetarium program. I like Cartes du Ciel but the asteroid datafile I downloaded from lowell.edu isn't working for some reason so for the moment I don't have a good program for asteroid ID.
Anyway... I was wondering how many observations of an asteroid over what time period would be needed to determine its orbit?
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Rick Evans
http://www.freewebs.com/revans_01420/
"The universe is there for us to see, but it cannot be understood without learning its language -- mathematics." Galileo Galilei
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Galaxyhunter
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 01/02/06
Posts: 1257
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Rick
Here is a link that will give you a ton of information.
Bookmark this page for future ref. 
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Carl
My lousy skies at Hawkeye Observatory
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revans
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 09/26/05
Posts: 1517
Loc: Fitchburg, MA
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Incredible information... this is like an entire new mature field of research for me...
Rick
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Rick Evans
http://www.freewebs.com/revans_01420/
"The universe is there for us to see, but it cannot be understood without learning its language -- mathematics." Galileo Galilei
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WillCarney
member
Reged: 10/08/09
Posts: 35
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Quote:
I like Cartes du Ciel but the asteroid datafile I downloaded from lowell.edu isn't working for some reason so for the moment I don't have a good program for asteroid ID.
Make sure you have the current update for Cartes. Lowell changed the address for asteroid/comet data and the update patch from Cartes web site is needed for it.
Mine works fine.
William
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revans
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 09/26/05
Posts: 1517
Loc: Fitchburg, MA
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I did that earlier, but still can't get it to work... I'll try again as this would be great data to have. The comets actually do work for me.... its the asteroids that don't so I don't think its the update issue...
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Rick Evans
http://www.freewebs.com/revans_01420/
"The universe is there for us to see, but it cannot be understood without learning its language -- mathematics." Galileo Galilei
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WillCarney
member
Reged: 10/08/09
Posts: 35
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Quote:
I did that earlier, but still can't get it to work... I'll try again as this would be great data to have. The comets actually do work for me.... its the asteroids that don't so I don't think its the update issue...
H'mmm. Both work for me right now. Even astorb connects. Your version should say 2.76c when you open up the program. It's a problem with your system either way not the Harvard web site since I can connect. You might have to reinstall Cartes or at least the 2.76c updater. Does Cartes use Java to update, anyone? That might be an issue if Java is turned off or not installed.
William
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RockandIceHunter
member
Reged: 11/05/09
Posts: 11
Loc: Tucson, Az
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If you have a net connection at your observing site, you can enter RA & DEC, or proper astrometry here:
http://scully.cfa.harvard.edu/~cgi/CheckMP
and it'll output all of minor planets within the radius you define to the magnitude you also define.
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--
Richard Kowalski
Catalina Sky Survey
Lunar and Planetary Laboratory
University of Arizona
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Blind-Cyclops
sage
Reged: 11/28/05
Posts: 489
Loc: Kitchener, ON, Canada
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RockandIceHunter -- Mr. Kowalski,
Thank you for the link
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Clear skies...
Duncan 
"Watch the skies, everywhere! Keep looking. Keep watching the skies!"
-- Closing line in movie spoken by newspaper report Ned "Scotty" Scott (Douglas Spencer) in the Sci-Fi movie
"The Thing From Another World", RKO Radio Pictures, 1951.
Antares (refractor) 127mm f/6.45. w/2-spd Crayford
Orion (Maksutov) 150mm f/12 w/2" EP adapter
Giro 3 (twin), 18" pier, EQ5 tripod.
Garrett 20x80mm, 410 head, 055 tripod.
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Blind-Cyclops
sage
Reged: 11/28/05
Posts: 489
Loc: Kitchener, ON, Canada
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GalaxyHunter -- Carl,
Thank you for the link
As stated above -- tons of info.
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Clear skies...
Duncan
"Watch the skies, everywhere! Keep looking. Keep watching the skies!"
-- Closing line in movie spoken by newspaper report Ned "Scotty" Scott (Douglas Spencer) in the Sci-Fi movie
"The Thing From Another World", RKO Radio Pictures, 1951.
Antares (refractor) 127mm f/6.45. w/2-spd Crayford
Orion (Maksutov) 150mm f/12 w/2" EP adapter
Giro 3 (twin), 18" pier, EQ5 tripod.
Garrett 20x80mm, 410 head, 055 tripod.
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Blind-Cyclops
sage
Reged: 11/28/05
Posts: 489
Loc: Kitchener, ON, Canada
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Revans -- Rick,
Great web site.
Looks like you're more into this hobby than just a little stargazing.
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Clear skies...
Duncan
"Watch the skies, everywhere! Keep looking. Keep watching the skies!"
-- Closing line in movie spoken by newspaper report Ned "Scotty" Scott (Douglas Spencer) in the Sci-Fi movie
"The Thing From Another World", RKO Radio Pictures, 1951.
Antares (refractor) 127mm f/6.45. w/2-spd Crayford
Orion (Maksutov) 150mm f/12 w/2" EP adapter
Giro 3 (twin), 18" pier, EQ5 tripod.
Garrett 20x80mm, 410 head, 055 tripod.
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revans
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 09/26/05
Posts: 1517
Loc: Fitchburg, MA
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Thanks, glad you liked the website. I've been doing amateur astronomy since the early 70s... but mostly lunar work and a little deep sky. I don't know much about asteroids yet... but I'd like to learn more about them.
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Rick Evans
http://www.freewebs.com/revans_01420/
"The universe is there for us to see, but it cannot be understood without learning its language -- mathematics." Galileo Galilei
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WillCarney
member
Reged: 10/08/09
Posts: 35
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There might be some confusion here. You said the comets work but the asteroids don't. Are you trying to use the Earth icon in the program and then asteroid elements, the elements link in the catalog menu or downloading them your self. The smaller element file is from Harvard not Lowell. Lowell has the larger astorb.dat file. If you got a astorb.dat.gz that is a zipped file. You can down load the smaller files from the web site then put them in the proper folder but it's better to have the program do it for you. Except the astorb file which is faster to download the zip and insert the unzipped file into it's proper folder. All files must be of the right format and in the right folder. You can even use the calendar icon to download satellite data.
I have had very few times were the program did not download the proper asteroid or comet data.
This usually only lasted hours at most for their web sites services and updates.
William
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