Stellarium plugin codes for Lemmon and ISON?

[bloodhound31]

Has anyone got the code thingy that you enter into stellarium for these two comets, plus instructions on how to update it with these?

Baz.

[mithrandir (Andrew)]

Originally Posted by bloodhound31

Has anyone got the code thingy that you enter into stellarium for these two comets, plus instructions on how to update it with these?

Baz, what version of Stellarium have you got?
Any reasonably current one has <F2> -> Plugins -> Solar System Editor
Check "load at startup" is ticked. If it isn't, tick it, go back to the "Main" tab, "save settings", exit, restart Stellarium, and now the "configure" button will be active. Click it.
Click the "Solar System" tab.
Click the "Import orbital ..." button.
Select "Comets", then bookmark "MPC's list ...", and "Import ..."
When it comes back with a list, "Mark all", "Add objects". Lemmon and ISON are both included.

You can do the same with "Asteroids". There are several URLs for these. "... bright ..." is one to use. "... NEA ..." is another but only tick the ones you care about like 2012 DA14. The whole list slows things down a lot.

The "Online search" lets you add things by name, but you must spell them exactly right - the right case and spaces.

These DO NOT auto update. You have to repeat this when you want it updated. The "Satellites" plugin does auto update.

[MrB (Simon)]

Cheers Baz and Andrew, was wondering this myself.

[pixelsaurus (Mike)]

Other than the label, is there anyway to get Stellarium to display an "icon" for comets? It is a bit disconcerting just to see a long name obscuring the starfield instead of showing the exact position.

[Barrykgerdes]

If you have followed Andrews guide you will have your comets now added to the ssystem.ini file. This file can be edited with a text editor but make sure you don't garble the syntax.

In this file you will find the entry for your comet and about half way down the entry you will see a parameter

tex_map = nomap.png

Now look in the textures folder and see all the solar system images and select one of the textures that end in .png or make your own in a drawing program and replace the nomap.png

If you want to play with the size add a line

radius=
and give a value in KM

at the moment there are no 3D images for comets.

Barry

[bloodhound31]

Thanks heaps guys. I'm all updated and imaged the comet last night. Winning.

Baz.

[mithrandir (Andrew)]

Barry, my only real complaint about adding comets is that the MPC elements don't get magnitude estimates updated, so Stellarium doesn't either. The original mag=10 is still on C/2012 F6, rather than the current mag=5.6 that JPL is giving.

It is possible to update ssystem.ini from JPL elements, just a pain to have to write more Perl code.

[bloodhound31]

Originally Posted by mithrandir

Barry, my only real complaint about adding comets is that the MPC elements don't get magnitude estimates updated, so Stellarium doesn't either. The original mag=10 is still on C/2012 F6, rather than the current mag=5.6 that JPL is giving.

It is possible to update ssystem.ini from JPL elements, just a pain to have to write more Perl code.

Sorry mate, I have no idea. I'm just happy to be able to plot it's location so I can find the darned things.

Baz.

[mithrandir (Andrew)]

Originally Posted by bloodhound31

Sorry mate, I have no idea. I'm just happy to be able to plot it's location so I can find the darned things.

Wrong Barry, Baz. I was directing the comment at Mr Gerdes, Stellarium test pilot.

[Barrykgerdes]

Calculating the apparent magnitude relies on knowing its size, reflectivity and position in relation to the sun and earth. I don't think the basic comet_orbit routine can calculate these with the limited data being processed.

Barry

[mithrandir (Andrew)]

Originally Posted by Barrykgerdes

Calculating the apparent magnitude relies on knowing its size, reflectivity and position in relation to the sun and earth. I don't think the basic comet_orbit routine can calculate these with the limited data being processed.

Barry

It's not that Barry. The MPC data Stellarium uses does not get the magnitude estimates updated. This affects any program that uses MPC data. MPC's numbers get copied into "absolute_magnitude" and "slope_parameter". Replacing them with M1 and k1 from JPL seems to give better matches to observations.

I can't see how this can be fixed easily. I get the JPL values to update ssystem.ini (and COMET-yyyy-mm-dd.DAT as used in CdC) but this is not a job for the faint hearted.