Stellerium

[BUSMANMARK]

Hello all, I don't know if this is the right place to ask this feel free to move it.anyway is there a setting on stellerium that will able me to pinpoint commets many thanks,

[chris_suffolk]

I've wondered the same, but don't think Stellarium requires a network connection, so unless it knows about the comet in advance (and lots are found not predicted) then it can't show them. There are specific websites dedicated to comets though, so perhaps they are better

[Steve789]

I've recently gone through this to add comet lovejoy.

Open Stellarium and hit F2 and click the plugins tab. Find the Solar System Editor in the left hand list and click it. Tick the "load at startup" box and restart stellarium. Navigate your way back to the Solar System editor and click on the Configure button. Click on the "Import orbital elements in MPC format" button at the bottom. Select Comets at the top and select MPCORB:Comets from the drop down list where it says "select the source". Click the "Get Orbital Elements" Button. Select the comet in the list you want to import in Lovejoy's case C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy) and click the Import Add button.

[ronin]

Problem is that data can be added but a version of Stellarium 12 months old cannot be aware of a new object identified 6 months ago. The data was not present at the Stellarium release.

Even if there are sort of patch upates the same occurs, bring out a plug-in or whatever to include 4 identified comets and you can be sure the next week another 6 are found and talked about on the internet.

[Ruud]

I prefer Cartes du Ciel for comets, but Stellarium will show them as well. Jarrod (JB80) shared these instructions on how to add comets and astreroids to Stellarium. They are essentially the same as Steve's instructions above.

There are even ways to add objects by hand.

Make a copy of ssystem.ini before you change anything, in case anything goes wrong. On my computer it is in c:\program files\stellarium\data\