Online asteroid data -> wish list?

Fri Mar 16 15:17:06 UTC 2018

Dear Jasem,

On 3/16/18 3:07 PM, Jasem Mutlaq wrote:
> If you have a method to automate this process, we can include it in 
> KStars.
You need it as C++ to remain compatible with Windows, I presume. 
Otherwise a fairly quick wget+awk combination would do it. I happily 
start out with something like that so we all learn what this could like 
like and what incompatibilities (if any) with the JPL the MPC data 
generates. I could also just have a "neocp_" prefix for all identifiers 
to get going.
> 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.
https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbwobs.cgi comes to mind. It yields something like

                                                              Apparent (mid-dark)
                                  Rise  Trans.  Set    Max.T    R.A.      Dec.     Vmag     R  Delta  O-E-M
   IAU# Object Name              hh:mm* hh:mm* hh:mm*  hh:mm  hh:mm:ss +dd mm'ss"         (AU)  (AU)  (deg)
------ -----------------------  ------ ------ ------  -----  -------------------  -----  ----  ----  -----
        1927 LA  <https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=1927 LA>                   21:32* 01:02  04:32   04:11  07:58:50 +00 42'36"  14.9   2.31  1.62  125.5
        1939 RR  <https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=1939 RR>                   07:34  12:25* 17:16*  01:44  19:23:23 -32 02'56"  18.0   3.10  3.31  64.51
        1989 FR  <https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=1989 FR>                   04:11  09:00  13:48*  05:07  15:57:41 -31 00'36"  18.0   2.51  1.95  107.9
        1992 TY1  <https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=1992 TY1>                  07:00  11:03* 15:06*  02:17  18:01:39 -10 32'30"  18.5   2.96  2.85  82.80

And to actually go for the object we first need have have its ephemeris generated.
I better take a break, though, since I just spotted that the RA and Dec for the ephemeres
generated by JPL Horizon is very different from the position delared above ... checked telescope location twice.
The ephemeres generated by MPC for that object and the same location however fits with the JPL data shown above.

So, the plan is to import this as a catalog, right? Can you please help me with the object
code for asteroids? It is not listed on https://docs.kde.org/ trunk5/en/extragear-edu/kstars/kstars.pdf page 26.
I can find it in the kstars sources if this is something you want me to do.

Cheers,

Steffen

> On Fri, Mar 16, 2018 at 5:04 PM, Steffen Möller 
> <steffen_moeller at gmx.de <mailto: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
>     <https://minorplanetcenter.net/data> and the
>     http://www.minorplanetcenter.net/Extended_Files/neocp.json
>     <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
>
>