--- Richard Mallett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Reply to : John Mahony > > You have to select which asteroids/comets you want to be "active" in the > > program > > ... > > Thanks for that John. How do I 'de-select' (e.g.) comets that pass 'out > of range' ? Do I ctrl-click each one individually ?
You can do that. If you don't have CdC set to automatically save options and settings at the end of each session (click preferences>"ask confirmation before to exit"), then the selected comets/asteroids won't be saved, so you can just select the ones you want when you start the program. If by "pass out of range" you mean the comet is now too far away to be detected, it will be deleted from the file stored at the Minor Planet Center. So you could just click "comet elements" in the comets tab to get an updated file from the MPC. But I'm not sure how often this file is updated. > Can I select just > those asteroids and comets brighter than a certain limit ? No, not unless you do that manually. Comet magnitudes are basically impossible to forecast very accurately, so Patrick has never built this into the program. > And why is 3 > Juno (as well as many others in the low numbers) missing from the list > of asteroids ? The list is a combination of two files kept at the Minor Planet Center, one for "unusual" asteroids, and the other listing only bright asteroids that will be at opposition sometime in the "current" year (the 2007 list has not been prepared yet). You can get custom lists of asteroid/comet elements from the MPC at <http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/iau/MPEph/MPEph.html> This page is for getting either ephemerides _or_ elements. Put the objects you want in the top window, skip the middle part (this is for ephemerides), then scroll down to "format for elements output" and select "TheSky" (CdC v2.x uses this format, but v3 uses MPC 1-line). Then click "get ephemerides". It will download a text file "elements.txt" to your computer. This file will look just like the "asteroides.dat" or "cometes.dat" files in your ciel\cat\planet folder, but with your new objects. So you can either cut/paste with a text editor to add the new objects to the old files, or just rename the files. -John ____________________________________________________________________________________ Never Miss an Email Stay connected with Yahoo! Mail on your mobile. Get started! http://mobile.yahoo.com/services?promote=mail
