To demonstrate I actually do read the Help occasionally, the IA help states "Depress the Eyepiece View button to open the Eyepiece Viewer. Press again to hide it. Once opened the first time, a circle will appear on the atlas that represents the field of view seen in the eyepiece (as defined on the viewer)."

Can the circle referenced above (that appears in the IA) be deleted?

Cheers
Bob

In light of the recent close encounter with 2023 BU, together with the fact I haven't done much with asteroids in ST at all, is there a tutorial or explanation here in the forum that someone can point me to regarding how to handle NEOs? Specifically, is there a correct way to regularly update the elements of a NEO to ensure you have the latest relevant data?

Thanks
Bob

In light of the recent close encounter with 2023 BU, together with the fact I haven't done much with asteroids in ST at all, is there a tutorial or explanation here in the forum that someone can point me to regarding how to handle NEOs? Specifically, is there a correct way to regularly update the elements of a NEO to ensure you have the latest relevant data?

Thanks
Bob

I see this morning that iTelescope has made the telescopes that were formerly hosted at New Mexico Skies available at the new site. It is nothing short of extraordinary that they could remove 8 telescopes, clean and upgrade them, and then re-install, align the mounts precisely, and make calibrations so quickly. I can only imagine that they hurried because of the comet.

I very much wish iTelescope to prove me wrong in my prediction that these telescopes will be a mess for some time to come. I don't have time to try them all right now, so if anyone uses them, please let me know how it goes. I will be releasing revised imaging systems in a week or so, and after that I'll have to spend some time with each one to get some better calibrations and to ensure that all of the equipment is up to date.

In the meantime, you can create a new location in SkyTools for the Utah observatory and assign that to each of the systems that have been moved.

A Pan-STARR 2 discovery with 61 observations over 6 days will make a close pass on Jan 25, 19:36UT at a distance of 0.599182LD (0.001540AU). The magnitude is estimated to be 14.2 with motion ~13'/min with excellent phase angle.. However, from my location in SE Texas, it may be too faint when high in the early morning hours of the 25th. You southern boys may have a look.

Hello fellow iTelescope users:

Without, as far as I can tell, any prior notification to its customers, iTelescope has abruptly decided to move all of the telescopes that were hosted at New Mexico Skies to a new location in Utah. I am not going to sugar coat it, even though I should probably do so. As a long-time iTelescope customer, I am very unhappy with their lack of transparency. This is not how I would choose to do business. We deserved to be informed about this before the telescopes were abruptly taken off line, much less still being in the dark weeks later.

I don't expect these telescopes to be back online for a very long time, but when they do come back, I'll recalibrate them as necessary. The level of support provided by New Mexico Skies for these older, tricky to maintain, systems has been consistently very good. All we can do is hope that the new site can provide the same level of support. 

Yes, I know I have been dragging my feet with some of the new telescopes in Chile. I need to take images and do some work to get them set up correctly. To be honest, I was so frustrated with how poorly these telescopes worked late last spring, as well as the lack of connectivity, that I gave up on them. But I am told that I should try again, and I will stop stalling and get new calibrations out soon.

CNEOS predicts that the newly discovered NEO 2023 BU will make a close approach on 2023-Jan-26 21:17 ± 02:22 UT at a distance of 0.00007AU. H=29.3 magnitude, V relative=9.33 km/sec, 'Rarity' = 2, Condition Code = 7.  This MP was discovered at MARGO, Nauchnij on 2023-01-21.

Using MPC's elements for February 25 2023 00:00 UT, ST4v predicts that this MP will reach a peak brightness of 16.1 magnitude on January 25 at 1800 EST when the NEO will be moving through Sagittarius at 14.2"/sec at 36.0k km distance. Close approach (to the nearest hour) is predicted to occur on January 25 at 1800 EST (2300 UT) when 2023 BU at 16.1 magnitude will be moving through Sagittarius at 14.2"/sec , 36.0k km distant but below the horizon as seen from Columbus, Ohio. Unfortunately ST4v predicts that it will not be observable with a 13" telescope under those conditions.

The Minimun Re occurs in daylight or twilight or the MP is below the horizon for North & South America, Europe & Australia so not a good shot at viewing it. It is getting very close though.

Since this NEO will get very close, parallax will affect the predicted positions, so you'll need to make charts for your location to get accurate positions for this object. Also, elements closer to the current date should be in the MPC's NEA datafile tomorrow. The elements for Feb 25 may reflect the earth's perturbtions on the orbit of this object, hence the difference between the CNEOS & ST4v predictied close approach time.

Good hunting.

Phil S.

Greg, have you implemented a way to grab & drag or a tool to rotate the FOV while having it displayed on the screen in an Interactive Atlas? I'm using Pro visual 4.0j R21.

Most, if not all the other astro applications I've used have some method to rotate the displayed (move the cardinal directions) chart so that N&E are pointing elsewhere. So that if I have a line of objects running from corner to corner, I can get them oriented left side to right side.

This comet currently has a broad stubby dust tail. But it also has a faint thin ion tail that is much longer. It takes a full physical simulation and some serious computing power to predict the position and distribution of the dust tail, which is currently beyond what SkyTools can do. But it can predict the position of the ion tail, which always points away from the sun.

When I get the chance to have a look myself, I'm going to try to detect the ion tail and see how far I can follow it. Binoculars may be best for this. I will look at it in the direction that SkyTools draws the tail on the charts. It may be too faint to detect, but it may also be that people are just missing it. If you manage to see it, please post here!

Hi Greg,

I've been running ST4v & ST4i on my desktop, but would like to install those programs on my wife's laptop so I can access ST4 when we travel. I have the original ST4i installation media (from 2018) & several copies of the ST4 Setup file in my Downloads folder (newest is dated 9-8-21). The more recent updates were done when a new version of SkyTools was released. The update was done by SkyTools itself. The original media is only for ST4i, but I now have the bundle.

My question is: how can I get the correct Install File onto the laptop & once the install is complete, how do I get the 2 copies Synced? I've seen other threads where you've recommended using a Backup -> Restore to load the second device with the data from the original device.

TIA,

Phil S.