C/2009 P1 Gerradd in stellarium

[martin_h]

If you copy this....

[Garradd] name = C/2009 P1 (Garradd) parent = Sun radius = 10 oblateness = 0.0 halo = true color = 1.0,1.0,1.0 tex_halo = star16x16.png tex_map = nomap.png coord_func = comet_orbit orbit_TimeAtPericenter = 2455919.1863 orbit_PericenterDistance = 1.550778 orbit_Eccentricity = 1.000901 orbit_ArgOfPericenter = 90.7398 orbit_AscendingNode = 325.9957 orbit_Inclination = 106.1893 lighting = false albedo = 1 orbit_visualization_period = 365.25

And paste it on to the end of ssystem.ini in Stellarium, wherever you have it on your comp...eg.

C/program files/stellarium/data/ssystem

ssystem will open in notepad

then you can restart stellarium and search for C/2009 P1 Gerradd

[stargazerkelly]

i must be doing something wrong everytime i search it says sinbad not found or something like that

[FraserClarke]

It's in the minor planet centre's comets list now, so it should be included automatically (or at least in the download section). I don't think there is any need to manually edit the config files now.

Check;

Configuration->Plugins->Solar System Editor

tick "load at startup" and click "configure" (bottom right of window)

(pops up new window)

go to "Solar System" tab

Click "Import orbital elements in MPC format"

(pops up a new window)

Select "comets"

Select "download new file from the internet"

Select "MPC's list of observable comets" from the drop-down list

(pops up a new window)

Click "add objects"

Should download the observable comets list and add them to stellarium. I guess you might need to restart stellarium for them to become visible.

You should now be able to search for "C/2009 P1 Gerradd"

[stargazerkelly]

right ive done all that and it still says cannot find simbad?

[FraserClarke]

No idea I'm afraid. I've never seen that.

Simbad is a common online archive searching tool, so somehow it is probably configured to try and look in there -- but no idea where that configuration is set.

[GJBC]

C/2009 P1 (Garradd) is the search you need to be doing there is a typo in frasers description as to what to search for

done it on my version of stellarium and it works fine. one other thing i done was on pasting the info into the system file i then put each command on a new line so it is more like

[Garradd] name = C/2009 P1 (Garradd)

parent = Sun

radius = 10

oblateness = 0.0

halo = true

etc etc might be worth a try.

now to try the plugin as above

[GJBC]

yep the plug in worked as well cheers Fraser never knew it could be done i was on version 10.5 so had to upgrade to the latest version 11

i now see there is so much more versitilitiey on the search functions

to find Garardd i only typed c/2009 p and it was there.

gong to have another look around see what else has changed as well.

[Altair]

now i have version 11 and copy and pasted the info into the file... but i am getting the same problem when searching for the comet by name.

it says simbad look up - not found

if anyone has any ideas as to what this means i would appreciate them!

[Daggerstab]

now i have version 11 and copy and pasted the info into the file... but i am getting the same problem when searching for the comet by name.

it says simbad look up - not found

if anyone has any ideas as to what this means i would appreciate them!

If you have copy/pasted the string from the first post without any modification, you may have messed up your Solar System file. Use the method described by FraserClarke above or this link:

https://answers.launchpad.net/stellarium/+faq/1746

The Solar System editor plug-in has one additional advantage: it displays a list of the currently loaded objects in the "Solar System" tab, so you can see if the comet is actually loaded.

After the comet is loaded, open the Search window and start typing the name, "C/200...". A list of suggestions should appear below the text field you are typing in. If you have only added Garradd, it should only show Garradd and the old McNaught comet that is included in the default Solar System list.

Below that, you may see a notice that nothing was found in SIMBAD, but this is normal - SIMBAD does not include comets. (Stellarium does an implicit search in SIMBAD if you are connected to the Internet.)