How to use the data from the
MPC NEO Confirmation
page with TheSky

For objects that do not have enough data necessary to create orbital elements you can use TheSky's tools to help find the objects in many ways.  By accessing the MPC's NEO Confirmation Page you can get the positions for newly discovered objects and have TheSky slew the telescope to coordinates.  Here is how.

 REMEMBER:  Whenever an object has orbital elements available use them instead!  By supplying orbital elements to TheSky can do all the work for you.  See the tracking rates page on Tom's Corner for complete details on how to do this.

The following screen shot shows the Minor Planet Center's NEO Confirmation Page.  The very bottom of the page has objects listed which need follow-up work so that orbital elements can be provided. 
 

Screen shot of NEO page

Grab Text at the bottom!

By highlighting the text at the bottom of the page that contains name, position, date, and magnitude you can easily Add the object to TheSky.  By doing this you can find the object by name, label it, and slew to it with minimal effort.  And best of all you don't have to do any manual entering of data.

Simply drag the mouse over the text first then copy that text to the clipboard.  See the following.  Once the TEXT has been high lighted Right Mouse Click and choose COPY. 

Drag the text using the mouse

Grab only the relevant text!

Now use WordPad, NotePad or any other TEXT editor to edit the text by pasting it from the clipboard.. 

Open WordPad for example and Edit Paste the text using the Edit | Paste Special "UNFORMATTED" Text mode!  You DO NOT want the text formatted for you.  Here is the text grabbed from the NEO page above and then after it was Edit Pasted Special into WordPad.

To clean up the text just remove the extra line between objects but this is not actually necessary.  However, YOU MUST keep the fields in the same columns!  In the example above there needs to be a space after the first two entries to line up the columns as shown below.

Now just attach the header text I have created to the top of the object data text so it can be compiled in TheSky directly.

The above header simply tells TheSky where the data is.  That is what columns are what.  This way you can just compile the text into an SDB file (Sky Database File) for plotting, searching, and slewing to the objects easy enough.

DOWNLOAD the above SDB and Text file

Place the two files in the Sky Database Folder.  It is located under \TheSky\User\SDB's.  Once the two files are there they can be added to the existing list of Databases using TheSky's Database Manager.  Data | Sky Database Manager's Add button.

Add the SDB file to the existing list

Your list may vary!

NOTE:  Because the SDB was compiled using Object Type "REFERENCE POINT" they must be set to visible to see them!  Use the View | Display Explorer to enable object type Reference Points.  Just enter Reference point in the Go to: field and you will be taken there.  See below.

Turn on Reference Points

 

Once the SDB has been added and Reference Points are set to visible as per the above the data can then be searched, labeled, and plotted in TheSky.  Use Edit | Find then go down to NEO's from MPC located under the list of Sky Databases (SDB's) and you will see a list of all objects by name.  You can also search by name but you must use the SDB name first then the NEO name.  As in "NEO's from MPC" space then the name.  Just as it is in the following.  Picking the NEO by name off the SDB list is easiest.

Edit | Find | SDB's | NEO's from MPC

Center the object you want!

The object can be slewed to just as easy as it is found provided the telescope has been initialized.

Once found you can slew to the NEO

Use the Object Information Dialog's
 Slew to button

NOTE:  The Set Tracking Rates option does not apply!  Because the data does not contain anything but RA and DEC a rate cannot be computed.  However, if you wish to CHANGE the default Paramount tracking rates that can be done manually.  The More Settings dialog is where.  Choose Telescope | Options | More Settings to access the settings for RA and DEC rates.

Change RA rate to a non-sidereal rate

Make the rate change here

&

Same for the Declination axis

Enter non-sidereal DEC rate here

NOTE:  It is easy to forget you have made changes to the tracking rates!  DON'T forget to put them back to ZERO when you are finished.  OR make sure you change them accordingly when slewing to different objects that are moving at different rates!

NEO shown in TheSky and Labeled

Note date/time and position for the NEO

NOTE: Don't forget to convert Universal Time to local time!  This is often an area of confusion.  The data provided is in Universal Time not local time so you must do the conversion or you will be several hours off.  I have done this myself so I am speaking from experience.  Nothing like running a script to image Rosetta the night AFTER it was visible!