Return ephemerides Return summary Return HTML page

Objects may be identified by designation or by name. Enter a list of designations or names below (jedna nazwa pod drugą, maksimum 30 nazw komet lub asteroid, nazwy obok siebie będą ignorowane, ważna wielkość liter):

Ephemeris Options (applicable only if selecting ephemeris return):

By default, ephemerides are geocentric, begin now and are for 20 days at 1 day intervals. The desired start date for the ephemeris should be entered in YYYY MM DD format Note that these ephemerides are intended to assist current observations only.

    Np. 2002 Lipiec 19 = 2002 07 19

Początkowa data efemerydy:      Liczba wyników (linijek) :

Skok czasowy:      Jednostka czasu : dni godzin minut

You may enter an observatory code or your observing site's coordinates:

Observatory code:     ( Warszawa : 558 )

Miejsce    dł. geog. ° E     szer. geog. ° N     wysokość m.

Longitudes and latitudes should be entered in decimal degrees.

Display positions in: truncated sexagesimal or full sexagesimal or decimal units

Total motion and direction
Separate R.A. and Decl. coordinate motions
Separate R.A. and Decl. sky motions
Display motions as: "/sec "/min "/hr °/day

Format for elements output:

none	MPC 1-line	MPC 8-line
SkyMap (SkyMap Software)	Guide (Project Pluto)	xephem (E. Downey)
Home Planet (J. Walker)	MyStars! (Relative Data Products)	TheSky (Software Bisque)
Starry Night (Sienna Software)	Deep Space (D. S. Chandler)	PC-TCS (D. Harvey)
Earth Centered Universe (Nova Astronomics)	Dance of the Planets (ARC)	MegaStar V4.x (E.L.B. Software)
SkyChart 2000.0 (Southern Stars Software)	Voyager II (Carina Software)	SkyTools (CapellaSoft)
Autostar (Meade Instruments)

If you select 8-line MPC format, you may display the residual block for the objects selected:

Show residuals blocks. Show only residual lines containing observations from code .

If you select 8-line MPC format the elements will be displayed with the ephemerides. If you select any format other than MPC format only the elements are returned. In such instances, your browser should download the elements file then save it to your local disk.

HTML Document Options (applicable only if selecting HTML return):

Both these are optional. A default will be supplied for the title. The default base URL is null.

Title for document:

Base URL for document:

All objects should be selected or unselected by default.

Lists of objects and software types should be centered or uncentered.

Return list of objects or link to summary page.

Note that the returned document will require you to add some introductory remarks. Default text for this is supplied, but should be replaced.

Supplementary Information

Summary

The summary lists the current J2000.0 coordinates, visual magnitude and solar elongation of the selected minor planets, as well as information on the date of last observation (where available), forthcoming opposition data and details on the latest published orbit. The opposition data lists the date of the next opposition and the declination and visual magnitude at that time. There is no support in the summary routines for comets.

Formats

The list of available formats for the orbital elements was correct at the time this document was prepared. It is possible that the Minor Planet Center now supports futher formats. If you select the summary option, any newly supported formats will be listed.

Designations and Names

Designations should be entered in one of the following forms:

• Numbered objects: (1290) or 1290
• Unnumbered objects: 1997 XF11 or 1998 AA.
• Numbered comets: 54P
• Unnumbered comets: P/2002 T1, C/2002 R3

Designations are case sensitive.

Names are case-insensitive, so Graff, GRAFF or GraFF will all find the elements for (3202). The current version of the code does not allow comets to be selected by name.

Elements

The elements supplied are the latest published elements for the specified objects. Elements will be found even if the designation you enter is a non-principal designation in an identification or if the object has been numbered.

Ephemerides can be generated for objects with only Väisälä elements, but the elements themselves are not supplied.

Ephemerides

The ephemerides supplied for main-belt minor planets and comets are unperturbed. Ephemerides from perturbed orbit solutions are generated from elements at the nearest 200-day epoch. The accuracy of the ephemerides for most objects will be entirely sufficient to locate the objects for current astrometric observation. Objects must be identified in images by their motion, not by their apparent closeness to a predicted position.

Ephemerides of NEOs with perturbed orbit solutions are generated from elements at the nearest 2-day, 1-day or sub-1-day epoch (as appropriate). This improves greatly the accuracy of such ephemerides.

The time-scale of the supplied ephemerides is UT (Universal Time).

If you desire a topocentric ephemeris, enter your observatory code in the appropriate box. When local circumstances are displayed, the azimuths are reckoned westwards from the south meridian.

As an aide-mémoire, the packed form of the object's designation (as used on the astrometric observation record) is displayed immediately above the ephemeris.

Residuals blocks

If they are available, you may select display of the MPC-published residual blocks when you select the 8-line MPC element format. As an option, you can restrict the display to only those lines containing observations from a particular observatory code. Residuals blocks are available only for perturbed orbit solutions and not all such residual blocks are available at the present time. You are warned that some residual blocks, particularly for low-numbered minor planets, consist of more than 1000 lines.

This service utilises the Minor Planet Ephemeris Service,
courtesy of the IAU's Minor Planet Center,
and it has been made possible by Process Software Corporation,
and their excellent OpenVMS Web server, Purveyor.