I have noticed this a few times now. Comet C/2018 Y1 (Iwamoto) will disappear, sometimes on the same day even after I've updated minor body orbit data. Not only is it missing from view, it doesn't come up in a search. This is with Sky Safari 6 Pro. With other comets I have to manually update minor body orbit data to keep their position accurate but they don't disappear and always come up in a search. Comet C/2018 Y1 (Iwamoto) seems to get removed from the database when restarting the app for some reason. Btw, I checked SS 5 pro and it has the same issue.
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Bill Tschumy John,
I haven't seen this and it seems somewhat unlikely to me. What exactly are you typing when you search?
The comet might disappear from the screen when it is deselected if you do not have "Shown Comets" ON or the comet is dimmer then you Solar System limiting magnitude. Since "C/2018 Y1" is currently listed as 18th magnitude, the latter seems plausible.
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John S Hi Bill
I confirmed it again this morning. I type in Iwamoto and I get Asteroid (4591) Iwamoto and Comet C/2013 E2 (Iwamoto) in Taurus. As soon as I updated the minor body orbit data C/2018 Y1 (Iwamoto) in Aurgia showed both in a search and on screen. The other night I updated the info to make sure it's position was accurate. I went out later that night to image it and it was gone. There are 2 Comets Iwamoto's in the sky right now. 1 in Taurus & 1 in Auriga. The one in Taurus always shows in a search along with the asteroid. The one in Auriga disappears. I don't have the issue with the version on my iMac, just my iPhone.
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Bill Tschumy I see the two comets and one asteroid. Do you have any idea what you do to make it disappear?
The code we use on iOS and Mac to manage these is virtually identical so I can't imagine why it would happen in one and not the other.
When it is gone, do you see it if you go to the Search > Brightest Comets list? If you are sorting by visual magnitude (the default) it should be the first comet.
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John S Strange, I wonder if it's specific to my phone. I just shut my phone off and turned it on and it was missing again. It wasn't in the list of brightest comets either. Glad you brought that to my attention, I'm learning new ways to search here.
Once I updated the minor body orbit data it was at the top of the list.
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Bill Tschumy When you say "shut my phone off", I assume you mean that you put it to sleep? You didn't fully power it off? Did you manually kill the app?
It would be surprising if it were just your phone, but I'm not really sure what is happening.
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John S I actually powered down my phone and then powered it up again.
This time I just tried closing the app, or manually killing it so it had to restart and the comet is still there. It's not a pressing issue if you are busy. I just thought I'd mention it so you are aware of any potential issues.
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Bill Tschumy Interesting. I just tried this on two of my iOS devices and don't see this issue. However, I believe we store the updated orbit data in a "caches" directory. In theory iOS can delete anything there if it needs disk space. Is your iOS device almost out of storage?
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John S That could be it. I just checked and I've used 14.9 GB of 16 GB. I'll try deleting some items.
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John S That seems to have worked. I just powered of and on and it's still there. Thank you Bill!
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Bill Tschumy Glad that worked. Thanks for making me aware of this potential problem. I'll see if we can avoid it in a future release.
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