How I set These Up

[theskyhound]

There are two things I wanted to ask

1. Most of the lists in the "Update Minor Planets Data" dialog do not appear as subscriptions - only "current bright and interesting minor planets" are subscribable.

It requires 7 clicks (shown below) to update a list and while it's a small thing, the programmer in me wishes there were an automatic refresh. I understand why some of the larger lists (eg ASTORB or the full MPCORB) should stay as an explicit load, to avoid hitting the distribution servers unnecessarily, but perhaps some of the smaller ones could be made available as subscriptions?

• click on Data
  
• click on Minor Planets
  
• click on Download/Import Data
  
• click on the desired list
  
• click on Download
  
• click on Close (after the d/l finished)
  
• click on Accept
  

2. There are two lists for NEAs. Is there any reasons not to always use the second one (perhaps only when looking at dates distant from today)?

• MPC NEA: Orbits for Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs). Updated a few times per day.
  
• MPC NEA Today: Orbits for Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs) at today's epoch for more accurate positions. Updated a few times per day.
  

Thanks,
Razvan

Hello,

1. There is an oid saying in software development: "simple things should be simple and complex things should be possible". I think this falls under that. Most users will be satisfied with the automatic downloads of minor planets. Only a very few are going to want to do it manually, and that makes them power users. Power users generally want options because what they are trying accomplish is complex and varied. The number of steps you describe are due to the fact that this is not something even a power user should not be doing very often under most circumstances, and having lots of options is almost a requirement. I don't see a lot off streamlining that could be done while preserving the functionality.

2. I'll refer you to the MPC docs for better information about the difference between these two lists, but in general, the second list should be more accurate since it is generated for today's epoch rather than their absurdly spaced standard epochs. BTW they used to generate standard epochs as often as every 40 days. With so much time passing between standard epochs now, even main belt asteroids are no longer accurately plotted at opposition when too much time has passed. The problem is that you may find that they have not included all of the NEA's in both lists...this is why I included both as downloads.