The Minor Planet Center just released an orbit for C/2019 Q4 (Borisov) and I have added it to the current comets target list.

This comet was only recognized yesterday as being of interstellar origin (a first). It is currently brighter than 19th mag.

The Minor Planet Center just released an orbit for C/2019 Q4 (Borisov) and I have added it to the current comets target list.

This comet was only recognized yesterday as being of interstellar origin (a first). It is currently brighter than 19th mag.

I used SkyTools 4 to locate Nereid a magnitude 18.69 moon of Neptune over 2 nights (01 and 03 Sept 2019) and was also pleased to find a couple of Asteroid trails on the 03 Sept images which SkyTools 4 identified for me.

I have overlayed the 01 and 03 Sept frames and replaced the Neptune/Triton pair with single frames from each session that were not blown out. These accurately depict the relative position of Triton mid-way through each session.

How good is SkyTools 4 Imaging.  

Nereid is the third largest of Neptune’s moons, and the second to have been discovered. It was discovered on 1st May, 1949 by the Dutch American astronomer Gerard P. Kuiper (for whom the Kuiper Belt is named) using photographic plates from the McDonald Observatory in Fort Davis, Texas.

Cheers

Dennis

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Hello,
I’m reviewing some of my personal viewings of objects with “difficulty” indicators displayed by the system.
For example, on the night of August 20th I easily found Messier M13 with my 10” dob.
Personally of the Messier objects I might consider M13 to be one of the easiest to find.
The system calculated this object as “Detectable” for that night.
Which to me would seem to indicate I might not find it easily – and yet I did.

On the other hand I’ve been trying to view the cat’s eye nebula “NGC 6543” in Draco
I looked for this object 4 different nights without success – even though I know my scope is set right on its location based on star patterns.
Now the system “difficulty” indicator for this object is displayed as “Obvious”.
And that doesn’t make sense to me.

I’ve got the geo-location and time set correctly as much as I can figure.
And I’ve got “seeing” set to “Average” and “Naked Eye” magnitude set to “6”.

On the one hand I’m wondering if its silly for me to be concerned about this
But then again if I’ve got something set incorrectly – I’m forever going to get “difficulty” indicators I’m not sure I can trust.

Any advise is welcome!

I will be attending Okie-Tex Star Party later this month. We will be there for the first weekend through Monday. We will have a table in the vendor area so please stop by and say hello.

I will be showing off both SkyTools 4 Visual and SkyTools 4 Imaging.

Hi Greg,

I see that T68 is moving from Australia to New Mexico and that iTelescope will no longer be operating at the Bathhurst Observatory. Do you plan to update the T68 Imaging System data to reflect the move after it's completed?

Thanks,

Phil S.

I just installed ST4 and have entered the necessary information to start. The list for the deep sky object came up. However, only 1 x binning is shown for all objects. How do I,or can I manually bin the calculation for binning. I would like to use 3 x 3 or 4 x 4. 

Thank you 
Bill H

Hello everyone,

I wanted to make everyone aware of the fact that, after a server failure in June, the Minor Planet Center has been struggling to update their comet database. New comets have not been added, and the orbits for exiting ones have not been updated. I am updating the SkyTools comet databases today. I have found other ways to update my own databases. For comets bright enough to be observed visually, there should be no problems as long as everyone updates their current lists, which will have the latest data.

For faint comets, particularly those that have been recently discovered, there may be some problems for those using SkyTools 4 imaging. These are comets that are not published in the Current Comets target list. In particular, since the Observable Comets from the MPC is no longer being updated, downloading it will not add new comets or update those that have been recently discovered. There are two solutions to this problem:

1. Open Comets from the top level Data menu. Select Download Single Comet. Type the designation of a comet that you want to update or add to your database. Close the dialog afterward.

2. I have already updated my own ST4 database, so if you would like the most recent comet data contact me, and I will create a Target List with these recently updated comets in it and make it available you. When you read this target list into ST4 the comet database will be updated.

Note: when you download the MPC Observable Comets in SkyTools 4 there is a small bug that will show that a few comets have been added and updated. This bug is harmless, but misleading. Don't believe the numbers if it says only a few comets have been added. It is likely that nothing has been added or updated. I will have a fix for this in the next update.

I will post here once the MPC has resolved their problems.

Brand new user here -- just a couple of hours old... ;-)

I am expecting to end up with this installed on 3 machines in my local windows domain -- my primary desktop (where I do image processing, etc), my laptop (for planning) and my observatory computer. Granted its not difficult, just tedious, but it would be nice to have a common pool of local information -- observatory location, scopes, camera details, etc. Any way to do that (short of typing it in over and over)?

Thanks,

greg latiak
Avalon Observatory
RASC Kingston

Hello, Has anyone had a problem using Ascom to connect  sky tools to their telescope? I have a Meade LX-90 mount  and sky tools . I got sky tools to connect to my mount two times, but when sky tools sends a slew command nothing happens. Now when i try to connect the mount and S/W the ascom S/W freezes up.I have posted my problem on the Ascom group but have not received a answer yet. will w