Is there a way to customize the sky mag limit for each telescope from each location? For instance from home, I observe with my 13" from generally Bortle 4 skies. The issue is that when looking south, I'm limited by a dome of sky fog (light pollution) from local towns and cities. Looking for a way to change my limits in that zone.
I'm testing the Exposure Calculator Tool, and I'm not sure if it is working correctly. I'm comparing my real results with the calculated results. So far they are not even close to each other, despite being sure that all the settings are correct.
In addition, my understanding is that if I increase the gain of my camera, then the required time to reach a certain SNR value will be shorter, but using the tool, the total exposure time does NOT change for ALL the gain values that I have! Is this reasonable? Attached is a sample for a target where the required time is 28 minutes to reach SNR value of 50 for ALL the gain values!
Also, I have a question regarding the "Read Noise" value that I should enter for my camera, is it the minimum or the maximum or the value which corresponds to my gain value? The same question applies if I'm doing BIN2, then should I keep the value for BIN1 and the tool will convert it? Or should I enter the value of BIN2?
Researchers from NASA and the University of Alaska are about to perform an unusual radar experiment. They’re going to ping a near-Earth asteroid using shortwave radio. The target is a 500-ft-wide space rock named “2010 XC15.” When it passes by Earth on Tuesday, Dec. 27th, the HAARP array in Alaska will hit it with a pulse of 9.6 MHz radio waves.
What’s unusual about this experiment is the frequency: 9.6 MHz is hundreds of times lower than typical S-band and X-band frequencies used by other asteroid radars. The goal is to probe the asteroid’s interior.
CNEOS predicts that this NEO will make a close approach on 2023-Jan-09 13:59 ± < 00:01 UT at a distance of 0.07254 AU. H=19.6 magnitude, V relative=9.00 km/sec, 'Rarity'=1 & Condition Code=0. This is a medium-sized object, 0.482±0.007 km.
Using MPC's orbital elements for the epoch 2022 December 20 00:00 UT, ST4v predicts that this NEO will reach a maximum brightness of 15.7 magnitude on January 2, 0.08 AU distant traveling through Lynx at ~8"/min. Close approach occurs on 2023 January 9 1100 EST (to the nearest hour) when ST4v predicts that it's 16.1 magnitude moving through Camelopardalis at 10.1"/min, but in daylight for Columbus, Ohio. This NEO will be visible for several days around maximum brightness. Using the elements for 2022 Dec 28 0000 UT the predicted maximum brightness is 16.76 magnitude still occurring on the morning of January 2.
Here's an Interactive Atlas chart showing the predicted path of this NEO from 2022 December 27-2023 January 7 for Columbus, Ohio: [attachment=2603]
Phil has found a bug in the minor planet code with regard to the download of the MPC Daily NEA orbital elements. The problem was that a feature I had implemented last year was accidentally disabled in testing. Nobody noticed until the MPC updated to the new standard epoch for next February. When that happened, if (and only if) you had NEA elements downloaded from one of the standard downloads, a set of elements with an epoch in the future was created, and the MPC Daily NEA orbital elements would fail to overwrite it. As a result, the orbital elements for the day were not added to the database.
I have released an update to version 4.0j R21 that fixes this issue. The MPC NEA Daily orbital elements will now overwrite the elements from the fture epoch. I apologize for any trouble this may have caused.
Please note that I don't always have time to follow the posts on this subforum. I only stop in from time to time to see what's going on with a particularly interesting flyby. So if you run into similar problems in the future, please bring them to my attention. If there is something that does not work as well as you think it should work, it is best to describe the problem (rather than propose a solution) with screenshots as appropriate. I will look into it a devise a fix or a solution. Please don't assume I know about the problem or that it can't be fixed!
CNEOS predicts that this NEO will make a close approach on 2022-Dec-20 12:35 ± < 00:01 UT at a distance of 0.01717 AU. H=21.1 magnitude, V relative=11.58 km/sec, 'Rarity'=2 & Condition Code=0. This is a medium-sized object, 160 - 360 m.
Using MPC's orbital elements for the epoch 2022 August 9 00:00 UT, ST4v predicts that this NEO will reach a maximum brightness of 14.7 magnitude on December 19, 0.02 AU distant traveling through Pyxis at ~45"/min. It may be brighter than 15.5 magnitude from December 15 - 20.
Here's an Interactive Atlas chart showing the predicted path of this NEO from 2022 December 16-20 for Columbus, Ohio: [attachment=2598]
Note that the IA chart is using elements for 2022 Nov 3.
CNEOS predicts that this NEO will make a close approach on 2022-Dec-15 08:12 ± < 00:01 UT at a distance of 0.00459AU. H=23.1 magnitude, V relative=5.91 km/sec, 'Rarity'=2 & Condition Code=0. This is a medium-sized object, 63 - 140 m.
Using MPC's orbital elements for the epoch 2022 December 13 00:00 UT, ST4v predicts that this NEO will reach a maximum brightness of 13.4 magnitude on December 16, 822k km distant traveling through Lepus at ~70"/min. Close approach occurs on December 15 0300 EST (to the nearest hour) when ST4v predicts that it's 13.7 magnitude moving through Fornax at 104"/min, but below the horizon from Columbus, Ohio.
Here's an Interactive Atlas chart showing the predicted path of this NEO from 2022 December 14-24 for Columbus, Ohio: [attachment=2597]
Since this object will pass very close to earth, parallax will affect the predicted positions of this NEO as it passes. Anyone interested in observing it should download the MPC's NEAs at Today's Epoch datafile using SkyTools' MP download options & create charts for their location.
We had a big slowdown for these forums in the last few days. I traced the problem to a plugin that we weren't actually using, and disabling it sped things up a lot. Unfortunately, this also somehow caused completely unrelated problems, such as some pages or features not loading properly. I think I have everything fixed, but if you have any problems, please let me know here or via email to support at skyhound dot com.
This NEO impacted earth on 2022 Nov 19 08:27 UT in Southern Ontario, Canada. It was detected only 3 hours before impact & would have missed but for earth's gravitational pull.
