I must have been asleep. I saw the post on MPML but somehow managed to delete it. Augh! MPML seems to be indicating it made a previous pass by Earth in early 1957 so unless one of Chuck's Estes model rockets managed to reach escape velocity back them it's probably a rock. Or an alien spacecraft... :) But no one seems to be sure just now. I had to look up the definitions. Delta is the distance from the observer to the object (in AU). r is the distance from the sun to the object (in AU). elong is the solar elongation of the object (in degrees). mag, as I'm guess you know, is magnitude. '/hr is how fast the object is moving across the sky in minutes of arc per hour. I could not find PA but I'm pretty sure that's Position Angle but I don't know angle from what. I posted to MPML asking how to find current ephemerides and was quickly told to check a site I did not know exists (MPML is great). So I went to http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/iau/NEO/ToConfirm.html and deselected everything but 9B82224, entered my observatory code (718 which you and others in the area are welcome to use), left all other settings in the default position and clicked on Get ephemerides. The data returned indicate we've got an excellent chance of seeing the object tonight. It'll be nearly straight up about 1 a.m. and pretty bright at 18.6. Looks like it'll be moving fastest between 9 and 10 which (I think) means it is closest. Sun's about to set. Time for my evening walk and then another fun filled night of minor planet chasing. :) Carpe Noctem! patrick On 16 Jan 2009, at 14:55, Jim Gibson wrote:
I was just reading the mail on MPML ({MPML} 9B82224 = unusual object) about the possible space junk coming our way. After your last success you may be following this one too; may be too far away though. I am just curious. What can I do with the data such as the astrometry or the ephemeredes data? Can I use it in my planetarium software? I don't have a tracking mount. I am not sure what it is telling me. Yeah, I recognize the RA and Dec but I am not sure what the delta, r and some of those other things are for. Is there a program a person can down load to compute the trajectory or orbit of stuff like this? Just curious. Don’t want to miss out on something because I am too dumb to use the data. http://www.projectpluto.com/mpec.htm#elements