Online asteroid data -> wish list?
Steffen Möller
steffen_moeller at gmx.de
Fri Mar 23 12:19:30 UTC 2018
Hello again,
I had asked my asteroidal mentor about his opinion. He said
(1) there is a new JPL analogue to the MPL NEOCP that is called "scout"
https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/scout/
with an API outlined at https://ssd-api.jpl.nasa.gov/doc/scout.html
(2) in particular for asteroids of a high magnitude one commonly
recomputes oneself the ephemeres from the observations available with
find_orb. That tool is open source and available in Debian already, so
kstars could just add it as "suggested" and would not need to
redistribute it.
(3) JPL/MPL is all fine, no conflicts since one does not use either
pre-computed data.
The recomputation of ephemerides (2) I had not expected. Sounds like a
nice feature for kstars to have, though. This could for instance look
like a text area to which past observations are downloaded on demand.
The user can then edit these data and add own observations. Then, the
ephemeres could be computed.
As an initial shot at (1) and (3), i.e. the initial selection of
asteroids to inspect at a given evening, I will have a closer look at
scout and also provide some C++ code to reformat it. If there is
something else you want me to do then please tell me.
Cheers,
Steffen
On 3/17/18 2:41 PM, Steffen Möller wrote:
> On 3/17/18 1:13 PM, Jasem Mutlaq wrote:
>> I think the asteroid component in KStars needs to be updated to
>> incorporate different sources instead of a single source like now,
>> then it could parse the different sources and resolves any conflicts
>> before making it available to the user.
>
> While this is certainly useful and interesting, I tend to think that
> for asteroids the user has already decided what source to trust for
> what purpose. After all, the equipment the user brings e.g. for
> asteroidal occultations is very different than for dealing with NEOs,
> so the choice is already made when kstars is started and no consensus
> between data sources is required. So, as a start I suggest to just
> show the data from a particular source that is selected.
>
> I propose you ("we" if you allow) get some workflow established that
> supports the communication of JPL/MPC resources with amateur
> scientists and then talk back to those agencies. They are likely to
> have more ideas and why not work towards a joint press release about it.
>
> The context from which I am bothering you about all is that I have
> joint the Slooh.com community. They have an A(steroid)-Team and a
> tutorial plus mentoring to guide noobs like me towards first
> successes. Their official guide towards prioritising the many
> potential targets is to enter their coordinates into kstars and its
> alternatives to then get an idea about the elevation above the
> horizon, the object-earth-moon angle, ... . That sounds worse than it
> is since Slooh only has two sites and reducing to a magnitude of 19
> limits the targets one wants to look at, but, still, it is 2018 and
> one should not need to perform any such error-prone typing or limit
> oneself to two sites of remote telescopes or to mag 19.
>
> So, I really think that kstars could make quite a difference.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Steffen
>
>> On Sat, Mar 17, 2018 at 5:25 AM, Steffen Möller
>> <steffen_moeller at gmx.de <mailto:steffen_moeller at gmx.de>> wrote:
>>
>> Hello,
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> I now created a small to tool and tried
>>
>> wget -O -
>> https://www.minorplanetcenter.net/Extended_Files/neocp.json
>> <https://www.minorplanetcenter.net/Extended_Files/neocp.json> |
>> ./neocp2kstars
>>
>> which gives me
>>
>> #catalog id longname RA Decl type magnitude
>> neocp 0 A106yEM 9.8501 -37.3746 255 17.3
>> neocp 1 ZFA1276 12.9752 19.5189 255 20.9
>> neocp 2 ZFA142F 16.1963 17.7824 255 20.4
>> neocp 3 ZFA13B2 15.2812 16.1363 255 20
>> neocp 4 ZFA1343 14.0707 13.71 255 18.5
>>
>> .....
>>
>> Source code is at http://functional.domains/kstars/
>> <http://functional.domains/kstars/> . There is apparently object
>> type for asteroids since kstars knows the ephemerides, right? For
>> this particular page, one does not really need to know much more
>> than that the NEO is listed on it and thus help is needed, I tend
>> to think. The magnitude is the most important parameter so the
>> user can decide if the object is likely to be visible with the
>> telescope and seing conditions. And then the user retrieves online
>> the ephemerides for the objects of interest. For other lists, one
>> may be tempted to want to know a bit morem i.e. more than the
>> catalog is currently prepared for.
>>
>> But we're getting our astroid data from JPL and not MPC, so
>> that's the problem here.
>>
>>
>> To the best of my little understanding of the whole process, the
>> neocp are not part of the catalogs, yet, so this should be fine
>> wrt redundancy.
>>
>> I am too new with this all to make any judgement on how likely it
>> is to expect differences/inconsistencies for numbered objects
>> between the institutions' generated web sites and what kstars
>> computes.
>>
>> Perhaps we can support more than one source of data.
>>
>>
>> This would be nice. Another list that I would like to see is
>>
>> https://www.minorplanetcenter.net/iau/NEO/LastObsNEO.html
>> <https://www.minorplanetcenter.net/iau/NEO/LastObsNEO.html>
>>
>> The MPC also offers a text file of that content which I happily
>> also transform.
>>
>> Maybe it would help to introduce the concept of temporary validity
>> of such star data. For any conflicting information the data in
>> kstars should be superior I tend to think since it can determine
>> the asteroidal positions for any time, right? Just for objects
>> unknown to kstars one would like to see that data added. Extra
>> information on the type of asteroid (hazardous or not, ...) and
>> when it was last found would be nice to address, too.
>>
>> Many thanks and regards,
>>
>> Steffen
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Mar 16, 2018 at 5:04 PM, Steffen Möller
>> <steffen_moeller at gmx.de <mailto:steffen_moeller at gmx.de>
>> <mailto: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>
>> <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>
>>
>> <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
>>
>>
>>
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