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dos_help.txt
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Version date: 2021 Oct 05
The parameters shown in this software are basically the same as those
shown in the Windows software, as described at
https://www.projectpluto.com/find_orb.htm
Commands are very different, because they are all keyboard based (but
you can do a fair bit with the mouse; see end of this text.)
? (Or any other unrecognized key) Shows this file (dos_help.txt).
ORBIT-FITTING COMMANDS:
r Reset R1 and R2, for use in the method of Herget. Results in being
prompted to type in new values for both. By default, units are AU,
but one can append 'km'; e.g., '.01 500000km' or '10000km 20000km'
are interpreted logically. Enter one value, and R1=R2 is assumed.
e Reset the epoch. Results in being prompted to enter a new epoch.
This can be simply a JD ("2451000.5") or a year/month/day ("2004
10 2"). Or you can enter, say, "+20" to advance the epoch 20
days, or "-40" to set it back 40 days, etc. Or "now" to set the
epoch to today, or "now-7" to set it to a week ago.
v Find Va'isa'la' orbit. You'll be prompted to enter a perihelion
(or aphelion) distance; it will then find a 'best fit' orbit with
that apsis distance at the center of the arc.
l Set a Limited orbit (e.g, "e=.1", "q=12.4", "a=2.3,e=.15").
h Take one step using the method of Herget.
f Take one "full step" using the method of least squares.
g Determine orbit with method of Gauss. (There may be alternative
solutions; hit 'g' again to cycle through them.)
| Determine a Monte Carlo variant orbit. Find_Orb will continue
generating variants until you hit another key to stop it. Observe
the changes in the orbital elements, and you get an idea of the
level of uncertainty. (Elements will also be stored in 'mpcorb.dat'.)
: 'Linearizes' the orbit, as described at:
https://www.projectpluto.com/vaisala.htm#linearized
# Uses a downhill simplex method, as described at
https://www.projectpluto.com/herget.htm#simplex
/ Uses a downhill 'superplex' method, as described at the above URL.
Backspace Undo the last orbit-fitting command.
F12 Find a circular orbit connecting the first and last positions. Hit
this repeatedly, and Find_Orb will iterate through possible
solutions. If the arc is long enough, there may be multiple-orbit
solutions, including many spurious retrograde ones. (Or there may
be no circular orbits at all.)
INTEGRATION MODEL COMMANDS (perturbers, non-grav effects):
1...9 Toggle inclusion of Mercury...Pluto as a perturbing object.
0 Toggle inclusion of the Moon as a perturbing object.
! If all perturbers are off, turns main planets on; otherwise,
shuts off all perturbers at once.
a Toggle inclusion of up to 300 asteroids. (See documentation for
details, including on how to limit/increase asteroid use.) NOTE
that this can slow things down a bit and appears to rarely matter.
* Non-grav model selection. You can choose among various non-grav
models for solar radiation pressure or comet outgassing. Click
on the [?] shown in the menu for details.
OBSERVATION TOGGLING/WEIGHTING/SEARCHING:
F1 or Alt-U
Toggle all observations prior to the currently-selected one.
F2 Toggle all observations after the currently-selected one.
F3 Toggle all observations for the currently-selected observatory. This
lets you, say, "shut off all 703 observations."
F4 Find previous observation from the current observatory.
F5 Find following observation from the current observatory. Both of these
functions wrap around at the start/end of the list of observations.
F6 Find preceding excluded observation.
F7 Find following excluded observation. Again, these both wrap around.
Shift-F8 Enter a three-character MPC code, and the next observation made
from that code will be searched for. Or, enter a date/time and
the first observation made after that date/time will be sought.
F9 Find the first included observation in the arc.
F10 Find the last included observation in the arc.
% Reset uncertainty of a particular observation. Enter, e.g., '.3'
to reset the positional uncertainty to 0.3 arcseconds; 'm.2'
to reset the photometric uncertainty to 0.2 magnitudes; or
't4' to reset the uncertainty in timing to four seconds.
Ctrl-Up Find the last observation of the preceding opposition
Ctrl-Dn Find the first observation of the next opposition
Alt-X Gets you a list of all MPC codes for the current object; click on
one, and the next observation from that code will be found
ON-SCREEN DISPLAY:
p Show orbital elements with an extra digit of precision.
P Show orbital elements with one less digit of precision.
Shift-F7 Toggle between the 'pure' MPC-formatted eight-line elements, with
P and Q vectors; and Find_Orb's slightly revised format, with
uncertainties (if available), P and Q, and extra MOID data.
+ Choose center object for orbital elements. By default, Find_Orb
determines the planet with the greatest influence on the object (at
the time of epoch) and the elements are relative to that object, so
you can get geocentric, Jovicentric, etc. elements. Use '+' to
a particular central object (which can be the barycenter of the
solar system).
of residuals are shown.
j Toggles the two lines showing which perturbers are included, R1 and R2,
orbital restrictions, and the step size. When shut off, two
more lines of residuals are shown.
; Toggles display of the "residual legend", which explains what the
assorted data in the residual area mean.
- Cycles display of the list of observatories among three options:
just data for the observatory for the currently-selected observation;
use about a third of the observation area for observatory data;
or use most of that area for observatory data.
Alt-K Toggle display of observational uncertainties in columns 57 to 65 of
the MPC 80-column format. Those columns usually go unused.
& Select format for observation RA/decs (minutes/seconds or decimal
degrees). You can also get this by clicking on "RA (J2000) dec"
on the black-on-cyan observation legend line.
Alt-Q Toggle observation info (white-on-red area) to show observer info
(TEL, OBS, MEA lines). Or just click on that area.
Alt-N Get options for the orbital elements frame (ecliptic, equatorial,
body frame). Or right-click on orbital elements to get a pop-up
menu option to do this.
Ctrl-B Toggle display of some "alternative" orbital element data, such as
MOIDs for all planets, encounter velocity, etc. You can also do
this by clicking on the orbital elements area.
RESIDUAL-RELATED COMMANDS:
Cursor keys : move up/down one observation, or a "page" up/down
at a time; 'Home' to first obs, 'End' to last.
- Toggles display of the list of observatory codes.
x Toggle the inclusion of the currently selected observation.
{ Filter all observations according to residual level.
} Cycles between 'normal' residuals (given to 0.01 arcsec precision),
'precise' residuals (0.001 arcsec precision), and 'super-precise'
residuals (values under a milliarcsecond are shown as micro, nano,
pico, etc.) No one will normally use this; I did so to verify
the level of roundoff/integration error in the software.
b When in "usual" one-obs-per-line residual formats, toggles
between decimal day display and HH:MM:SS display.
d Show resiDuals in current format & save to file 'residual.txt'
t Select "usual" display of residuals in RA and dec, or resids in
time and cross-track distance, or in sigmas along error ellipse.
= Toggle between "usual" residuals, and display of total angular
residual and magnitude residuals.
w Find Worst (highest-residuals) observation.
@ Toggle off display of residuals outside the currently-used arc
of observations. By default, Find_Orb will compute those
residuals; if the observations are quite far from the actually
used arc, that can take a while. Toggling them off can help
speed things up a bit.
( Compute residuals for _all_ observations. By default, the Herget,
Vaisala, and Gauss methods don't bother computing residuals for
observations not within the currently-set arc. This speeds up
the program, but does require you to hit this key if, for some
reason, you want to know those residuals.
] Toggles display of 'deltas': except in the short MPC format,
differences between the currently-selected observation and
the others, in time, RA, and dec, will be shown. Useful
to get a quick how-far-is-this- obs-from-that-one, in time or
position.
Alt-K Toggles display of sigmas in the observations area. (Or click on
'sigmas' on the black-on-cyan legend line.)
Shift-F6 Toggle to display (over-)'precise' residuals
EPHEMERIS-RELATED COMMANDS:
m Make an ephemeris. You get a menu asking for a starting date/time,
step size, and number of steps. You can also set the observing
location (by MPC code) and have a little control over what
ends up in the ephemeris Ephemeris-specific help is available
from within this menu.
CLIPBOARD COMMANDS:
Alt-I Copy orbital elements text to the clipboard. (Or left-click the
orbital elements area to get a pop-up menu option to do this.)
MISCELLANEOUS COMMANDS:
) Show a user-selected text file. I added this because I'm sometimes
in the midst of solving an object and would like to look at some
file or another, without needing to exit or start a new console.
o Select a new file of astrometry.
n Select a different object from the input file of astrometry.
` (that's a backward-quote-mark!) Toggles between N(uclear) and T(otal)
comet magnitudes. When a full-step is done, you'll see that
'M(N)' becomes 'M(T)', or vice versa.
s Save orbital elements to a file. (Whatever elements are shown
on-screen are also stored in the file 'elements.txt'. This
command really just copies 'elements.txt' to a file of your choice.)
[ Show covariance and correlation matrices from last 'full step',
plus an attempt to extract the largest eigenvalue of the former
in hopes of computing uncertainty info. This data is stored in
the file 'covar.txt'; this command really just displays that file.
F8 In Linux/*BSD/OSX, show the 'original' console as it looked when
Find_Orb started. Hit Enter to return to Find_Orb.
Alt-R Reset the 'reference' (defaults to 'Find_Orb'; you should put your
name here so people know who computed the orbit)
Alt-L Select a different language. Note that none of the translations is
particularly complete.
q Exit the program
COMMANDS NOBODY SHOULD HAVE TO USE (mostly for my testing purposes, or
not really working yet)
z Reset the integration step size, in days. (No longer relevant,
except when using the testing-only symplectic integrator.)
$ Reset integration tolerance (default is 1e-11). Used for testing
how good the integrator is.
y Show details of the last Gauss orbit computation.
z Integrate current orbit forward, then back, a certain number of
days, and compare to original result. Used when I suspect the
integrator's not quite as precise as it might be, and to evaluate
what integration tolerance should be used.
" Shows details of Curses mouse commands (these differ from one platform
to the next, and I needed a way to puzzle them out), and info on
the DE file currently in use.
. Show flavor of Curses, DE and Find_Orb version info in use.
, Show 'debug.txt' (log of debug messages).
\ Shift all observations from a given observatory by a given time offset.
Used when I was trying to puzzle out some timing errors from a
specific observatory for a specific object.
Alt-D Reset debug level.
Shift-F6 Reset atmospheric drag (doesn't work yet)
Mouse actions:
Move cursor over an item and you will (usually) get a "tool tip"
Click on [?] at upper right of screen/within dialog boxes to get info
on that screen or dialog box
Click on any of the "menu" items on the top line to get that action
(click [+] or [-] to get more/fewer menu times)
Click on the R1, R2 display to be prompted to enter a new R1 and R2
Click on a planet abbreviation to toggle its use as a perturber
Click on an observation to select it; double-click it to toggle it
Click on "Xres Yres" to get residual display options
Click on the epoch to enter a new epoch
Click on a line in the list of observatories to get options to search
for observations from that code, or to modify how many obscodes
are shown in that list
Move mouse over an obscode in the list and scroll with the mouse wheel
to find previous/next observation from that obscode
Click on scroll bar at right edge (in 'help', or in ephemerides, or
next to the observations in the main screen) to... well... scroll.
Move mouse over the 'YYYY MM DD.DDDDD' in the residual legend and scroll
the mouse wheel to move up/down by a year, day, 0.001 day, etc.
Amount will depend on which letter the mouse is over.
Move mouse within the residuals section and scroll up/down.
The following table was shamelessly copied from:
https://www.minorplanetcenter.net/iau/lists/Sizes.html
It lists the diameters of minor planets corresponding to the given values of
the absolute magnitude, H. The diameter is to be read as kilometers when H
is in the "H(km)" column, meters in the "H(m)" column, and millimeters in
the "H(mm)" column. For example, H = 8.0 corresponds to a diameter of 65 to
150 km, whereas H = 23.0 corresponds to a diameter of 65 to 150 m.
Conversion of H to a diameter for a specific object requires knowledge of
the object's albedo. This quantity is not known for most objects, so the
diameters listed here are given for albedoes of 0.50, 0.25, and 0.05.
Most objects have albedos in this range. If a specific object has an
albedo less than 0.05, the diameter will be larger than the upper limit
listed here (possibly up to infinity, if you imagine an extremely black
"Stealth Asteroid"). If the albedo is greater than 0.50, the diameter will
be smaller than the lower limit given here (possibly as low as sqrt(.5) of
that lower limit, if the object is icy and has essentially a 100%
albedo... but no lower than that; you can't reflect more than 100%.)
Table: Probable diameter ranges for various
H values and albedo values.
H(km) Albedo H(m) H(mm)
0.50 0.25 0.05
-2.0 4700 - 6700 - 14900 13.0 28.0
-1.5 3700 - 5300 - 11800 13.5 28.5
-1.0 3000 - 4200 - 9400 14.0 29.0
-0.5 2400 - 3300 - 7500 14.5 29.5
0.0 1900 - 2600 - 5900 15.0 30.0
0.5 1500 - 2100 - 4700 15.5 30.5
1.0 1200 - 1700 - 3700 16.0 31.0
1.5 940 - 1300 - 3000 16.5 31.5
2.0 750 - 1050 - 2400 17.0 32.0
2.5 590 - 840 - 1900 17.5 32.5
3.0 470 - 670 - 1500 18.0 33.0
3.5 370 - 530 - 1200 18.5 33.5
4.0 300 - 420 - 940 19.0 34.0
4.5 240 - 330 - 740 19.5 34.5
5.0 190 - 260 - 590 20.0 35.0
5.5 150 - 210 - 470 20.5 35.5
6.0 120 - 170 - 370 21.0 36.0
6.5 95 - 130 - 300 21.5 36.5
7.0 75 - 110 - 240 22.0 37.0
7.5 60 - 85 - 190 22.5 37.5
8.0 45 - 65 - 150 23.0 38.0
8.5 40 - 50 - 120 23.5 38.5
9.0 30 - 40 - 95 24.0 39.0
9.5 25 - 35 - 75 24.5 39.5
10.0 19 - 25 - 60 25.0 40.0
10.5 15 - 20 - 50 25.5 40.5
11.0 12 - 17 - 37 26.0 41.0
11.5 9 - 13 - 30 26.5 41.5
12.0 7 - 11 - 24 27.0 42.0
12.5 6 - 8 - 19 27.5 42.5
13.0 5 - 7 - 15 28.0 43.0
13.5 4 - 5 - 12 28.5 43.5
14.0 3 - 4 - 9 29.0 44.0
14.5 2 - 3 - 7 29.5 44.5
15.0 2 - 3 - 6 30.0 45.0
15.5 1 - 2 - 5 30.5 45.5
16.0 1 - 2 - 4 31.0 46.0
16.5 1 - 1 - 3 31.5 46.5
17.0 1 - 1 - 2 32.0 47.0
17.5 1 - 1 - 2 32.5 47.5
Important note: residuals are O-C ("observed minus computed"), so
positive y (dec) residuals mean the object was observed to be _north_
of prediction, positive x (RA) _east_ of prediction. A positive mag
residual means the observed mag was fainter than the prediction. A
positive time residual suggests your clock may be slow (should be set
ahead by that many seconds).
New moon dates for the next few years :
2016 May 6 2017 Dec 18 2019 Aug 1 2021 Mar 13 2022 Oct 25
2016 Jun 5 2018 Jan 17 2019 Aug 30 2021 Apr 12 2022 Nov 23
2016 Jul 4 2018 Feb 15 2019 Sep 28 2021 May 11 2022 Dec 23
2016 Aug 2 2018 Mar 17 2019 Oct 28 2021 Jun 10 2023 Jan 21
2016 Sep 1 2018 Apr 16 2019 Nov 26 2021 Jul 10 2023 Feb 20
2016 Oct 1 2018 May 15 2019 Dec 26 2021 Aug 8 2023 Mar 21
2016 Oct 30 2018 Jun 13 2020 Jan 24 2021 Sep 7 2023 Apr 20
2016 Nov 29 2018 Jul 13 2020 Feb 23 2021 Oct 6 2023 May 19
2016 Dec 29 2018 Aug 11 2020 Mar 24 2021 Nov 4 2023 Jun 18
2017 Jan 28 2018 Sep 9 2020 Apr 23 2021 Dec 4 2023 Jul 17
2017 Feb 26 2018 Oct 9 2020 May 22 2022 Jan 2 2023 Aug 16
2017 Mar 28 2018 Nov 7 2020 Jun 21 2022 Feb 1 2023 Sep 15
2017 Apr 26 2018 Dec 7 2020 Jul 20 2022 Mar 2 2023 Oct 14
2017 May 25 2019 Jan 6 2020 Aug 19 2022 Apr 1 2023 Nov 13
2017 Jun 24 2019 Feb 4 2020 Sep 17 2022 Apr 30 2023 Dec 12
2017 Jul 23 2019 Mar 6 2020 Oct 16 2022 May 30 2024 Jan 11
2017 Aug 21 2019 Apr 5 2020 Nov 15 2022 Jun 29 2024 Feb 9
2017 Sep 20 2019 May 4 2020 Dec 14 2022 Jul 28 2024 Mar 10
2017 Oct 19 2019 Jun 3 2021 Jan 13 2022 Aug 27 2024 Apr 8
2017 Nov 18 2019 Jul 2 2021 Feb 11 2022 Sep 25 2024 May 8