26 replies to this topic

[Sky King]

I figured it out, but maybe there is some way to do this in ASTAP?

 

I uploaded my image to Astrometry.net and plate solved. It found 4 Cap. Then I went to the Worldwide Telescope link on the bottom right-hand side, and then searched for Pluto.

 

As you can see I just missed it. Pluto is at the cross. 

 

 

[555aaa]

Here's comet 144P Kushida using the ephemeris based stack on an alt az mount with no rotator. Sorry these are extremely poor quality subs but it seems to be working. It's 21 exposures of 30 seconds each on 4/2/2024

 

 

Now of course I have a request (sorry!). For the objects on the NEO confirmation page, they are not allowed to be in MPCORB.DAT but they do have a prospective PA (position angle) and sky speed. JPL Horizons or the MPC ephemeris generator will produce a sky motion for your location and it would be nice to be able to just enter that. You can do that in Tycho or in Astrometrica. 

 

For this object the sky motion was only 1.7"/min at 95 degrees PA (which is the correct direction of star elongation here)

 

Good job again and thanks for all the hard work,

-Bruce V