Software Bisque Knowledge Base Article – 1153

1. From TheSky6, Click Data | Comets and Minor Planets.
2. Click the Comet tab.
3. Click the Observable button in the From the Web group to list comets that are currently observable.
4. Select the desired comets from the list and click OK.
5. Click OK. TheSky6 retrieves the text file at the following URL: 

http://www.minorplanetcenter.net/iau/Ephemerides/Comets/index.html

and displays the comets in this text file on the comet Select dialog box. Search TheSky6 Help for “Comet Orbital Elements” for details.

To download the orbital element data for a particular comet (not listed in the Observable list)

1. Visit the Ephemerides and Orbital Elements Web Site, click on Comets, and then search this page for the name of the comet you're after.
2. Click on the “forms suitable for loading into a number of popular planetarium-type software programs” link.
3. From your browser, click Edit | Select All, then click Edit | Copy to copy this information to the Windows Clipboard.
4. From any ASCII text editor (such as Notepad), click Edit | Paste.
5. Click Edit | Save As, and then navigate to the /TheSky6/Comets folder. In the File Name text box, enter “My Comets” (or any name) and then click Save.
6. From TheSky6, click Data | Comets and Minor Planets. Click Import, then select the file from step 5, and then click Open.
7. Select the desired comet from the list, and then click OK.

1. From TheSky6, Click Data | Comets and Minor Planets.
2. Click the Minor Planets tab.
3. Click either the Distant, Critical or Unusual button in the From the Web group to list these minor planets.
4. Select the desired minor planets from the list and click OK.
5. Click OK.

Or, display all known minor planets using TheSky6's Extended Minor Planets.

TheSky6 retrieves the text files at the following URLs:

Distant Minor Planets:

http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/iau/Ephemerides/Distant/Soft06Distant.txt

Critical Minor Planets:

http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/iau/Ephemerides/CritList/Soft06CritList.txt

Unusual Minor Planets:

http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/iau/Ephemerides/Unusual/Soft06Unusual.txt

And then displays the minor planets in these text files in the Select dialog box.

To display minor planets in TheSky6 using AstOrb.dat

1. Download and decompress the file AstOrb.dat to TheSky6's /Software Bisque/TheSky6/User/Minor Planets folder (or any other folder).
2. From TheSky6, click Data | Extended Minor Planets to display the Extended Minor Planet dialog box.
3. On the Extended Minor Planet dialog box, 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.

TheSky6 will now compute and display the most recent positions of all the known minor planets.

TheSky6 now displays these comets using the latest orbital element data. Search TheSky6 Help for “Minor Planet Orbital Elements” for further details.

Minor Planet Web Site: Asteroid Observing Services Web Site

Lowell Observatory's minor planet file named AstOrb.dat:
ftp://ftp.lowell.edu/pub/elgb/astorb.html

Minor Planet Center:

Another source of minor planet data is from the Minor Planet Center (the MPC Orbit Database). The orbital elements are distributed in a file named “MPCOrb.dat”: http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/MPCORB.html 

TheSky6 displays the positions of satellites using standard two-line element (TLE) data.

1. From TheSky6, Click Data | Satellites.
2. Click the Import From The Web button.
3. Select the desired satellite TLEs to load and click OK.
4. Click OK.

TheSky6 will now display the updated TLE's for these satellites.

Search TheSky6 Help for “Satellite TLE” for further details.

Satellite TLE Web Site: Space Track Web Site