Going after asteroids

[abillionnewstars]

Do I need to download anything to identify asteroids? I suppose sharpcap does its own platesolving but where do I get a recent database for asteroids identication?

I want to livestock an area where stellarium says an asteroid is and think SC can identify it but need some guidance.

Thank you

[admin]

Hi,

SharpCap now includes a catalog of about 2000 of the brightest asteroids in its built-in database - select the 'Bright Asteroids (MPC...)' catalog in the full catalog target selection window. The selection of asteroids is based on the inclusion of anything that gets to mag 15 or brighter within the next 2-3 years. SharpCap will calculate the current position from the orbital data, so it should be able to get you pretty much straight to any of those asteroids after plate solving corrections just like any other target.

I think from another thread it looked like you had an out-of-date version from before the 'Unstack' feature was added, so do make sure to update to get all the latest features including the asteroid catalog.

cheers,

Robin

[abillionnewstars]

Good news! I tried it and got Aethra at magnitude 14.75 two nights in a row.

Next challenge is Pluto!!

[admin]

Good luck with Pluto - current magnitude is about 14.5, so comparable with the asteroids you are already seeing, so *should* be very possible

cheers,

Robin