It's sometimes interesting how we miss these small rocks until after closest approach. This appears to happen rather often. Take 2021 NU3 as an example, discovered just couple days ago, 1+ days after its close approach which occurred on July 8, 7:17UT (my location). The small (25') rock came in from the sun-ward side and directly over the north pole unseen at magnitude 15.7. It then continued outside our orbit and finally crossed the ecliptic a day later (9 July 3UT) at magnitude 17.6ish. At this point I think observations may have begun. It was actually a magnitude fainter when closest due to phase angle. At this point the orbit is still uncertain. Crazy stuff as sun-ward approaching rocks will surprise us.

Looking a bit ahead so playing with 2016 AJ193. Not a lot of windows of opportunity except possibly Aug 20 11UT. It sits directly on top of IC1913 ~26° up in the south at ~12.5mag. In nautical twilight for me but farther west maybe okay. Moon set.

Also on 21 Aug 11UT ~30° up  azi 135°. Bit fainter ~13.5, Moon set. Moving 1.5'/min. Again, Nautical Twilight for me but other farther west may be good.

I have a Finder Chart on screen (which I opened from the Mount Alignment Tool / Display Celestial Pole chart). How can I display stars for that chart during daylight? All star settings that I can see are turned on. When I move to twilight times then the stars appear, which leads me to think that this chart is taking into account the time of day. Fair enough. However, I do have an open cluster displayed in said daylight chart which contradicts my original thinking.

Have I missed a setting somewhere?

Thanks
Bob

I'm looking for a way to lower the confusion index by having all times show as UTC. Is there a way to do that? This is mostly in reference to changing locations and plotting moving objects viewed from locations around the world.

I use https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/ca/ and https://spaceweather.com/ to watch for close passes.

2019 NB7 looks good but the time error window is huge. Most likely due to being lost after not many observations. I'm choosing 2021 NE because the error is small. Never mind that it's faint and going to be below our horizon as this is just an example of how to set one up.

Click the name and it will get it into Horizons where you can adjust location, Time Span, etc. From the previous table saw close approach at July 10 15:37UT. I'll let Horizons run a 48 hr ephem from July 9-11 00:00UT to see where it is in dark skies. See 4-9UT good window for two mornings. Use your IA to find when those positions are up - 9th transits 01:00CDT, 10th transits 02:35CDT.

Now go back and change ephemeris to elements and create an hourly elements set. I'll pick 07:00UT on 10th. Copy (Ctrl+C) one full hour of elements.

Now in SkyTools, choose "Data", Minor Planets, "Enter New Minor Planet", Paste. Add in the name & H from Horizons. Click OK.

Wait. Do not interfere with the process. My hourglass takes ~200 seconds to completely finish and clear. Wait!!

Now go back into ST Ephemeris (position) and do object search. Set up the Date to coincide with the time of observation, Period for 1 hour, Interval for 2 minutes. Be watchful of time (UT vs Local). Run. Times agree well with Horizons!

Now pick time and choose Interactive Atlas. Run some tracks there. Use your finder chart. If anyone can add ways to shorten this process, I will thank you now.

Kenneth Drake

Hi Greg,

It looks like the filters on T16 in Spain have been changed from what's shown in ST4 Imaging. Only a Luminance, Blue, Green & Red filter are available now. Is this something that I can change in the IS setup or do you need to do the update?

If you like, I can go through all the iTelescope filter loads to see if there are other changes.

TIA,

Phil S.

Is there a way to print a mosaic from the IA that shows all the tiles? I have only been able to get one tile in print preview, whereas the IA itself shows all of them.

Thanks
Bob

I've got to get better at this. I thought I might have had a chance to snag 2021 NA whizzing by last night (July 2 21:00-23:00CDT). I fetched MPC NEA Today (July 2) and did the ephem for time and date when close and bright. Showed best and apparent at 22:00 July 2. This small rock was moving over 900"/min but near the limit of scope plus there were some clouds moving in and out. Did not find it. Just now compared ephem with one from Horizons and position was different. Enough that I could have easily been looking 1.5° too far SE. I need to get better at this. It takes a lot of patience to track down and chase one of these faint fast movers.

Hello,

I'm quite new to ST and I've a question to the scheduler.

I've planed a project that has a total integration time of about 4.4 hr. When I want to schedule the project it only uses around 3 hr, allthough I've selected the min. Quality to B. Please see also the screenshots.

Why is the project not scheduled over the whole night with the given min. Quality?

Hope you can help me.

Greetings
Alex

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Clearly I don't have a good understanding how the Scheduler works.

So, how do I get a Project to schedule over multiple nights? What controls govern doing such? Can you set a date range or something?

I can only get a single night schedule (obviously tonight is very limited due to Moon which is correct). The Lagoon neb has scheduled correctly for tonight, but no other nights. The Orion neb won't schedule tonight, as it has already set, but what about other nights?

Thanks
Bob