Identify An Asteroid in Interactive Atlas

[PMSchu]

Hi Jack,

Sorry that I didn't describe the procedure that I used better. Here's what you need.

First download the FULL MPCORB from MPC. The daily update won't have all of the MPs in it & you'll need them all.

Here's how I setup the MPCORB download:     

Uncheck the 'Current Epoch Only' box because you're interested in 2022 Aug 29 which is outside the current 200 day window that ST4v uses for MP elements.

You should have ~1.24E^6 MPs in the database for the epoch 2023 Feb 25 0000 UT (Displayed as 2023 Feb 24 in the Saved Epochs section of the MP DB dialog - it's the night of 2023 Feb 24)

Hopefully you'll also have ~1.2E^6 MPs for the epoch 2022 Aug 9 0000 UT (Again displayed as 2022 Aug 8). This is the data that you want for the 2022 Aug 29 Interactive Atlas (IA) chart. (To reduce the size of the MP DB you can use the Cleanup function to Delete elements Older than 600 or 800 days, for example. KEEP the 400 day old elements.)

Now you're ready to create the IA chart. Open an IA chart centered on NGC 559 with a 30° field.

As Greg described, set the star magnitude limit to 11 or fainter. (I used 11.) This is described in the Help section.

Set the Minor Planet magnitude offset to +12 as described in the Help.

Now the IA chart will display MPs to magnitude (11+12)=23 magnitude. You can use the Trails function to display the motion of any MPs in the 30° FOV of the IA chart.

I found that if the FOV was too small there weren't any MPs displayed in the FOV, but displaying MPs to magnitude 23 seemed sufficient unless your friend has access to some pretty impressive equipment. That's always possible.

To increase the sensitivity, set the star magnitude to a fainter value, like 14 or 15, then MPs of magnitude 26 or 27 would be displayed. Zoom in to a 15° FOV and the displayed magnitude will become fainter yet.

Let us know what caused the trail. Hopefully it wasn't a faint meteor (not possible if it occurred on several exposures).

Hope this helps,

Phil S.