2021-10-12, 08:19 PM
Hi Greg,
Thanks for this update. As one of the more troublesome users of the Minor Planet features of ST4, which is fantastic by the way, I've managed to mess things up on many occasions. Sorry for that. I don't mind the time required to update the MP database, as long as I can control when that happens. The suggestion to uncheck the box to update the Current MPs OL is a good one. By doing the update after ST4 has already started, the Splash Screen doesn't stick on the screen during the update. I don't care if ST4 requires several minutes after updating, if I can be running something else during that time.
I do have several duplicate entries for some MPs like (10482) Dangrieser & (10483) Tomburns that I was observing with iTelescopes a few years ago. I was unable to delete the double entries & gave up. A bigger problem is a search for (10482) Dan Grieser returns 1991 RY16 if I search MPN 10482 or (10537) 1991 RY16 if I search 'dangrieser' in the Des Search. Tomburns, works as expected.
My MP DB has ~2x10^6 orbits in 6 epochs, with ~10^6 of them for epoch 2021 July 4 downloaded from the MPC. I'm a pack rat, former researcher & don't like to delete anything, so cleaning up the MP DB will hurt. I also used Sync to transfer many of my old ST3 OLs going back several years. A while back I did wipe out all of the MP OLs & restart from scratch, but it was unpleasant
.
I really don't mind the time required to do either the full MPC or Bowell update, since I only do that every week to 10 days & let the update proceed in the background. The NEAs at Today's Epoch updates run much faster - maybe 7 min or less for ~25k NEAs.
One thing that might help would be the ability to input 3-7 sets of elements for a close approach, load them in the DB, then do all of the precalcs. Somethhing along the lines of reading a section of the HORIZONS element output all at once would be great with a header containing the MP designation & the H & G parameter values. Then the precalcs could process them all at one time. If that not feasible, that's OK though.
ST4 already has so much of the functionality needed to calculate the ephemerides of close approaches. Perhaps a special DB for elements of close approachers that can use multiple epochs close in time & plot the position at time t(x) using each of the elements sets to calculate the position & plot it similar to what's already done using the Trace option, but hold time constant & repeat the position calculation with different element sets instead. You instantly see how the changes in elements affect the predicted positions.
Just a thought.
Let me know if there's anything I can do to help out,
Phil S.
Thanks for this update. As one of the more troublesome users of the Minor Planet features of ST4, which is fantastic by the way, I've managed to mess things up on many occasions. Sorry for that. I don't mind the time required to update the MP database, as long as I can control when that happens. The suggestion to uncheck the box to update the Current MPs OL is a good one. By doing the update after ST4 has already started, the Splash Screen doesn't stick on the screen during the update. I don't care if ST4 requires several minutes after updating, if I can be running something else during that time.
I do have several duplicate entries for some MPs like (10482) Dangrieser & (10483) Tomburns that I was observing with iTelescopes a few years ago. I was unable to delete the double entries & gave up. A bigger problem is a search for (10482) Dan Grieser returns 1991 RY16 if I search MPN 10482 or (10537) 1991 RY16 if I search 'dangrieser' in the Des Search. Tomburns, works as expected.
My MP DB has ~2x10^6 orbits in 6 epochs, with ~10^6 of them for epoch 2021 July 4 downloaded from the MPC. I'm a pack rat, former researcher & don't like to delete anything, so cleaning up the MP DB will hurt. I also used Sync to transfer many of my old ST3 OLs going back several years. A while back I did wipe out all of the MP OLs & restart from scratch, but it was unpleasant
.I really don't mind the time required to do either the full MPC or Bowell update, since I only do that every week to 10 days & let the update proceed in the background. The NEAs at Today's Epoch updates run much faster - maybe 7 min or less for ~25k NEAs.
One thing that might help would be the ability to input 3-7 sets of elements for a close approach, load them in the DB, then do all of the precalcs. Somethhing along the lines of reading a section of the HORIZONS element output all at once would be great with a header containing the MP designation & the H & G parameter values. Then the precalcs could process them all at one time. If that not feasible, that's OK though.
ST4 already has so much of the functionality needed to calculate the ephemerides of close approaches. Perhaps a special DB for elements of close approachers that can use multiple epochs close in time & plot the position at time t(x) using each of the elements sets to calculate the position & plot it similar to what's already done using the Trace option, but hold time constant & repeat the position calculation with different element sets instead. You instantly see how the changes in elements affect the predicted positions.
Just a thought.
Let me know if there's anything I can do to help out,
Phil S.