Extended Minor Planets command (Data menu)

Use this command to select a data file obtained from the Lowell Observatory that contains information required to plot the positions of minor planets on the Virtual Sky.

The total number of minor planets that can be loaded is only limited by the amount of memory in your compute. To date, there are approximately 250,000 cataloged minor planets.

Note that extended minor planets are not loaded into memory and require a significant amount of processing time to compute their positions.

Each time this command is selected, the positions of all minor planets in the selected minor planet file are computed and updated. This is the only time their positions are computed.

The latest orbital elements for all know minor planets are provided with TheSky. However, this data is subject to change as new minor planets are discovered and orbits are refined. To obtain a minor planet file that contains information about every minor planet discovered up to today, click on the link below.

Orbital Element File Name

Select the name of the file that stores the minor planet data.

Compute on Startup

Automatically load and compute the positions of extended minor planets when TheSky is launched.

Show 24-Hour Path

Display the path that minor planets will travel during the next 24-hour period.

Show All Minor Planets at All Fields of View

By default, TheSky displays extended minor planets only when the field of view is less than 50 degrees. Mark this option to override the default behavior and display extended minor planets at all fields of view.

Compute

Update the positions of all extended minor planets.

Remove

Remove the extended minor planets from the Virtual Sky.

Note: The Minor Planet Center updates daily the orbital element data that is used to display the minor planets in TheSky. The name of the file that contains all of the latest data is AstOrb.dat. Currently, this file is approximately 70 MB and contains orbital element data for over 250,000 minor planets.

1. Download and decompress the file AstOrb.dat to TheSky's \My Documents\Software Bisque\Minor Planets folder.

    ftp://ftp.lowell.edu/pub/elgb/astorb.html

    

2. From TheSky, click Data | Comets and Minor Planets, and then click the Extended Minor Planets tab .

3. On the Extended Minor Planet tab, click the Browse Folder button (...) in the Orbital Element File Name group.

4. Select the file from step 1 and then click Open.

5. Select the desired extended minor planet display options and then click OK.

TheSky will now compute and display the most recent positions of all the known minor planets.

Latest Minor Planets Elements (web link)