sorry if that last post underestimates your familiarity with Stellarium.
if that doesn't fix the missing handles and you are sure about the correct location and observation time,
you can reset Stellarium to it's virgin, default settings.
often, when a program surface, the graphical user interface - or GUI - does not act as it should,
just like your Stellarium missing the handles for machholz
it is good trouble shooting technique to delete the preference file (the "plist" file) of the application.
That file stores the settings for the application as they were initially designed by the programmer. While the application is closed, this file can be deleted and will automatically be re-created when the application is launched again.
Stellarium doesn't use the standard plist files on a Mac but employs the Windows inherited configuration files named "config.ini" and "ssystem.ini".
It is safe to delete them. They do get re-created on next program launch.
Note that if you have had any user specific settings, they will be lost and be set back to default:
Location setting and objects will have to be re-loaded. The 96p/Machholz will also need to be re-loaded.
So how do you remove the "config.ini" and ssystem.ini to potentially fix the missing-handle-bug?
Quit Stellarium.
Open a Finder window and navigate to your user home folder.
(It's here where you find all your blue folders like Music, Desktop, Movies etc.)
Open the blue folder Library. Open the folder Application Support. Open the folder Stellarium.
Here, you can drag the "config.ini" to your desktop - for save keeping.
Open the folder Data and drag the ssystem.ini to the desktop - for save keeping.
Now launch Stellarium.
You will have to re-set your location and also download the comet defintiion for 96p/machholz.
Only download Machholz at this stage to keep it simple. And because I know that it works since I only have downloaded Machholz.
Now, check whether you can search for Machholz in the early evening hours at your location.
If the handles appear:
(and you can delete the 2 files from your desktop.)
If the handles don't appear - then let's put those 2 files on your desktop back where they came from. They were not causing the problem so you can re-use all the settings stored in them.
You could post here, again, and maybe I will have another idea.
