Online asteroid data -> wish list?

[Jasem Mutlaq]

If you have a method to automate this process, we can include it in KStars.
But we're getting our astroid data from JPL and not MPC, so that's the
problem here. Perhaps we can support more than one source of data.

Best Regards,
Jasem Mutlaq


On Fri, Mar 16, 2018 at 5:04 PM, Steffen Möller <steffen_moeller at gmx.de>
wrote:

> Hello again,
>
> On 3/13/18 9:50 AM, Steffen Möller wrote:
>
>> Dear KStars-Team,
>>
>> There are multiple web sites out there that support amateur astronomers
>> with the prioritization of their asteroidal observations. I mean, there is
>> no chance for kstars to know this offline since only the MPC knows when a
>> newly reported asteroid needs a confirmation. These are somewhat tricky at
>> times in that even when you are granted the opportunity to specify the
>> geographic location of your telescope, these do not necessarily state the
>> exact time at which it is available (which you need to ask for the
>> ephemerides in a second step) or the object is so low above the horizon
>> that one would shy away from it. So, I'd very much like to see these
>> dynamically created web sites auto-feed my wish list and fall back to the
>> comfort of kstars.
>>
>> Would that be desirable? If so, then I propose to contact the provider(s)
>> of these web sites about the degree they want to support any such project
>> e.g. by a XML/JSON version of their output if they don't have it already or
>> the parsing could be a first code contribution of mine. These sites also
>> differ in the extra information these offer about the asteroid. Once could
>> such also consider to extend the data model that represents asteroids in
>> kstars with such dynamic information. To mind comes the date at which the
>> asteroid was last observed.
>>
>> Please kindly instruct me about what I should do towards any such
>> development.
>>
>
> I received a reply by Valentin who suggested to import such files
> manually. I was not ultimately happy about that suggestion, I must admit,
> since to me it was important to see the workflow as a whole somehow
> represented from within kstars. But he may have a point. The MPC offers
> both XML and json files here https://minorplanetcenter.net/data and the
> http://www.minorplanetcenter.net/Extended_Files/neocp.json in particular
> seems of interest to me.
>
> So, I'll then prepare a script to download that file, pimp it for an
> import to kstars and report about it here.
>
> Steffen
>
>
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