2024-04-04, 12:33 AM
(2024-04-04, 12:04 AM)PMSchu Wrote: Hi Greg,
So if only the Numbered and Bright boxes are checked, how many MPs would be downloaded? Would it be like 1 year's worth of the 'Current' objects that you provide? Do you know what causes the epoch of osculation to change to 2024 Apr 1 13h54m40s?
Phil S.
Hi Phil,
It doesn't have anything to do with my current list. This set of minor planets is designed to allow people to get a manageable list of potentially observable minor planets with little effort. Its just a mpcobs download like this:
And it adds the requirement that the minor planet must be brighter than 16th magnitude, on the current date. There is also a test for some minor planets to see if they ever get as bright as magnitude 16 during the current year. The list is placed in the Automatically downloaded folder and is, of course, meant to be filtered for a specific telescope, location, night, etc.
I have no idea about the epochs. Its just what is currently available from the MPC. When they adopted the ridiculously long time between standard epochs a few years back they also started updating selected minor planets to a more recent epoch, but I don't know how or why they are selected.
Clear skies,
Greg
Head Dude at Skyhound
Greg
Head Dude at Skyhound