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Re: Stellarium & Comets
From: Peter Monta
Date: 2022 Jan 08, 02:38 +0000
From: Peter Monta
Date: 2022 Jan 08, 02:38 +0000
Hi Bob,
The MPC comet orbital element format is documented here:
You'll want the second of the two formats (Ephemerides and Orbital Elements Format).
Alternatively, you can use the friendlier format that Stellarium uses internally. On Linux, the file of solar-system minor bodies lives in ~/.stellarium/data/ssystem_minor.ini. You can just add your comet to this file and restart. For example, one of the comets that's in my copy of the file is:
[1I_Oumuamua]
# source = https://www.nature.com/articles/nature25020/tables/1 and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CA%BBOumuamua
absolute_magnitude = 22.08
albedo = 0.07
name = 1I/2017 U1 (`Oumuamua)
orbit_ArgOfPericenter = 241.43
orbit_AscendingNode = 24.6056
orbit_Eccentricity = 1.1956
orbit_Inclination = 122.545
orbit_PericenterDistance = 0.25383
orbit_TimeAtPericenter = 2458005.961
orbit_good = 3600
coord_func = comet_orbit
radius = 0.102
type = interstellar object
Cheers,
Peter
