OHM MPC Database Asteroid Viewer and Exporter v2.0

[talavar]

Im trying to find comet Elenin in MPC

However it seems the search is case sensitive (not just case sensitive, but has to be EXACT!), and with so many different ways (names) it could have been typed into the system, is there a way to narrow it down quicker? Been trying to find it for an hour. Anyone have a direct link to the site so i could manually copy the data if need be? Thanks in advance.

 

[talavar]

Also, ive noticed something with the exporter.. the meteors aren't in their correct orientation. such as ..2005 yu55 is to pass us this year in november, however in orbiter, it comes nowhere near .0022 AU. Iv'e noticed that there is a 3.0 version that was to be released with bug fixes.. however i cant find a link that isnt broken.

 

[Nicholander]

Uh... I'm having a problem with this, when I try to start it up it says:

"Component 'COMDLG32.OCX' or one of it's dependencies not correctly registered: a file is missing or invalid" COMDLG32.OCX is in the file directory, so what is the dependency that it needs?
I tried running it as administrator and it now seems to be working.

 

[boogabooga]

This program is cool.

 

[Nicholander]

Yeah, I tried it. However, I can't seem to find 2008 RV119. (It was in Piper's 2nd Chapman Challenge, one of the participants orbited it). Maybe it's miss labeled as 2008 RV113, and I found here that it has a know Absolute Magnitude, so I don't need to check that box. (It crashes when you check that box anyway)

 

[boogabooga]

Just a shot, but the asteroid you are looking for was discovered the same year that this add-on came out. It might not have been discovered yet when the database included here was compiled!

Try to follow the directions to d/l the latest database from the MPC. Perhaps it will be included there.

 

[Nicholander]

Which one of them should I download? I tried the MPCORBcr.DAT, which it says takes 20-40 minutes to download and is already in the file directory. I clicked download, and the main window said DOWNLOADING for a second and then stopped. Should I download one of the other things? Also, if you want to see the Piper's Chapman Challenge thing where I saw someone orbiting 2008 RV119, download Io Orbiter, and in it's readme there's website called http://www.ioss.ca/IoOrbiter/index.html. On that page, there's a bar on the left which which near the top of it is a thing which says "Chapman Challenge". Then click on one of the participants medals/badges which says II on it. Then near the bottom of that page you'll see some text which says "In Orbit Of 2008 RV119", and an image above it.

EDIT: I tried downloading the other things, and they all say "Improper File Format" when I try to open them.

 

[boogabooga]

I don't know, I'll have to look at this again later.

 

[phoenix2b]

Hello
I'd tried this program but nothing is fonctionnal. I loaded database, i can read the elements and datas but all buttons are grey (i can't export to orbiter, create elements, export list)
I file the good orbiter folder, i well changed the . in place of , and copief the textures on texture folder.
Do you have an idea to run this programm which seems to be fonctionnal for some of you.
Thanks

 

[boogabooga]

So I obtained the latest mpcorb database from http://www.minorplanetcenter.net/iau/MPCORB.html.

This program requires the carriage return version (MCORBcr.dat). The minor planet center no longer supports that. I found a conversion utility here:
http://www.projectpluto.com/mpcorbx.htm

But for some reason, it is not running on my computer and the C source code will not compile (doesn't like fopen). Can anyone get this conversion utility to work?

EDIT: Nevermind, the cr version can be found here:
http://ara.roma.it/ricerca

If it comes up improper format on loading, open the file in WORDPAD and delete a line at the bottom and and extra line between the header and the start of the data.

 

[boogabooga]

So, I was using this program to try to simulate tomorrow's "close" pass of NEA 2002 NN4 in Orbiter 2010 and Celestia. In Celestia everything seemed to come out okay, but in Orbiter the asteroid was nowhere near where it was supposed to be.

So, I think that I traced the problem as follows:

I'm using a fairly fresh (circa April 2020) MCORBcr.dat that I downloaded from the source that I gave above (Almost five! years ago, wow time flies). The database gives the Epoch (Julian Date) as 2459000.5. In the new Orbiter configuration file, this program outputs Epoch = 2020.50159817352. However, I think that is wrong. If you input the Julian date into the Date.exe (in the Orbiter Utils folder), you actually get Epoch = 2020.41204654. Using that Epoch in the asteroid's configuration file seems to produce the "correct" result in which closest approach to earth is on about June 6, 2020. So, I believe that this program is calculating the wrong Epoch date such that mean anomaly is off by about one month's travel!

The difference in output Epoch's between this program and Date.exe is 0.089552. I'm not sure if this difference is meaningful. Perhaps a mix up between Julian and Gregorian dates?

 

[Ajaja]

boogabooga
You can use https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.cgi to get accurate position/velocity of many objects.
For example 163348 (2002 NN4):

Current Settings
Ephemeris Type [change] :  	VECTORS
Target Body [change] :  	163348 (2002 NN4)
Coordinate Origin [change] :  	Geocentric [500]
Time Span [change] :  	Start=2020-06-05, Stop=2020-06-06, Step=1 d
Table Settings [change] :  	quantities code=2; output units=KM-S; labels=NO; object page=NO
Display/Output [change] :  	default (formatted HTML)
***************************************************************************************************************************************************
Ephemeris / WWW_USER Sat Jun  6 12:56:32 2020 Pasadena, USA      / Horizons    
*******************************************************************************
Target body name: 163348 (2002 NN4)               {source: JPL#121}
Center body name: Earth (399)                     {source: DE431}
Center-site name: BODY CENTER
*******************************************************************************
Start time      : A.D. 2020-Jun-05 00:00:00.0000 TDB
Stop  time      : A.D. 2020-Jun-06 00:00:00.0000 TDB
Step-size       : 1440 minutes
*******************************************************************************
Initial IAU76/J2000 heliocentric ecliptic osculating elements (au, days, deg.):
  EPOCH=  2454810.5 ! 2008-Dec-10.00 (TDB)         Residual RMS= .52185        
   EC= .4343913051208709   QR= .4957984691053313   TP= 2454734.7578051584      
   OM= 259.5939862897321   W=  222.2010444706416   IN= 5.41684141141638        
  Equivalent ICRF heliocentric equatorial cartesian coordinates (au, au/d):
   X=-2.274943458064881E-01  Y=-9.199641622712953E-01  Z=-4.032279265667014E-01
  VX= 1.230176318035230E-02 VY=-8.929390139960677E-03 VZ=-2.449725492776112E-03
Asteroid physical parameters (km, seconds, rotational period in hours):        
   GM= n.a.                RAD= .3675              ROTPER= 14.5                
   H= 20.1                 G= .150                 B-V= n.a.                   
                           ALBEDO= .030            STYP= n.a.                  
*******************************************************************************
JDTDB
   X     Y     Z
   VX    VY    VZ
*******************************************************************************
$$SOE
2459005.500000000 = A.D. 2020-Jun-05 00:00:00.0000 TDB 
   4.475140483488716E+06 -2.547965251106276E+06 -7.880550907905360E+05
  -7.047481976880935E+00 -8.312621758138453E+00  2.256802925112478E+00
2459006.500000000 = A.D. 2020-Jun-06 00:00:00.0000 TDB 
   3.865475454015441E+06 -3.266300059734945E+06 -5.929644894662437E+05
  -7.065208571336214E+00 -8.316470173730487E+00  2.259079042106625E+00
$$EOE
*******************************************************************************

For Orbiter it turns into something like this:

BEGIN_ENVIRONMENT
  System Sol
  Date MJD 59005.000000
END_ENVIRONMENT

BEGIN_FOCUS
  Ship GL-01
END_FOCUS

BEGIN_SHIPS
GL-01:Deltaglider
  STATUS Orbiting Earth
  RPOS 4.475140483488716E+09 -7.880550907905360E+08 -2.547965251106276E+09
  RVEL -7.047481976880935E+03 2.256802925112478E+03 -8.312621758138453E+03
END
END_SHIPS

 

[boogabooga]

Ok, so the Horizons solution comes out to MPC Database Asteroid Viewer solution (within about 1400 km), only when the Epoch correction is applied as I suggest above. So heads up that there is an error that needs to be corrected.

I'm okay with the 1400 km error, given that this program is only generating a 2 body elliptic solution anyway.