It happens that once I added a new object (e.g. a comet or steroid) and saved the orbital parameters, after closing the session and restarting Starry Night the new object is missing in the object list. I checked that the .ssd file had been created, but it seem that SN does not read it. I could not find any additional instructions in the manual. What am I doing wrong? Thanks
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Dlucas Hello Virginio. Would you want to try again... loading in the object, then clicking in the menu "Options | Save current options as default," then close and re-open?
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Virginio Oldani Thank you. I tried, but still it does not work... I tried also by saving the current view as a .snf file, but it does not work as well...
Starry Night opens with the saved options and view, but the comet is not there.
My objective is to study the evolution of the spin axis orientation of some periodic comets in the past orbits, so I create a new comet and enter the orbital elements of the specific epoch, then I save it as a new object with the comet name followed by the relevant year (e.g. "19P Borrelly 2004").
One additional thing I do is to change the surface model by applying an asteroid surface (without changing the type of object -by the way I tried also changing the object type to asteroid but it does not work as well...-), in order to show the comet nucleus as a sphere with the pole sticks, surface grid and terminator (I need to do this to study the spin axis, because in SN8 the comet shows only as a naked rock, unfortunately these options have been removed in the recent versions of SN. I was used to do so in Starry Night 5 and it had always worked well). Is this the reason why the new comet disappears after closing SN8?
It is really frustrating the need to re-enter everything every time....
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Dlucas Wow - that's awesome that you're studying those features, Virginio. It's like... professional-level stuff -- which only re-emphasizes my theory that Starry Night Pro is the best planetarium software for amateurs and professionals alike. But -- we have to get this working for you. Let's hope Keiron will have an idea? That's all I can think of trying. So sorry it didn't work.
Keiron?
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Virginio Oldani Thank you anyway for your prompt reply. The scope of our studies is to model the inner coma of comets. We are using a proprietary, specifically designed software for that, but to correctly model the coma features it's critical to know, once estimated the RA/Dec of the pole, how the spin axis changes its orientation over time along the orbit and in different orbits, as viewed projected on the sky plane from a geocentric location. I found that Starry Night is excellent in this and also seems to be the only software which permits to manually enter the desired parameters and performs very precise calculations. So I fully support your theory that SN is definitely the best planetarium, and hope Keiron is able to help me. I look forward to a solution to my problem. Cheers
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Dlucas That's awesome, Virginio.
I'm with you. I hope Keiron can help too.
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Keiron Smith Virginio Oldani
- What Starry Night program and version are you using?
- What operating system?
Thanks for your patience waiting for a reply.
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Virginio Oldani I'm using Starry Night Enthusiast 8 on Windows 10
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Keiron Smith Please try the following.
Read this: Importing SN6 data to SN7/SN8 (Or: How I learned to stop worrying and love Sky Data overrides.)
In the SkyData folder you will find the Asteroids.txt, Comets.txt and Satellites.txt files.
Duplicate your preferred text file. Then open and edit the original text file, adding the orbital elements for the object you want. Save the file. Start SN8.
Is the object present?
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Dlucas This is so radically cool. I can't wait to try it.
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Virginio Oldani No, it does not.... I added comet Borrelly 19P (that for unknown reasons is listed under asteroids in SN8) to the Comets.txt file in exactly the same format (I added 2022 to the name: 'Borrelly2022' to clearly identify it as a newly added object) and saved the file. Then opened SN8 and searched for it...nothing.
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Keiron Smith In Preferences > StartUp > increase the number of comets ready in at startup to 9999.
This should read in every possible comet listed on the txt file.
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Dlucas Made this change. Thanks Keiron.
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Virginio Oldani I made this change and created and saved a new comet.
After closing the program, I tried to reopen but it crashes and now there is no way to open it.... (report at the link https://www.dropbox.com/s/tt1lcya5g0ngmf2/1447172e-2808-4468-972c-bae96d4b5f4d.zip?dl=0 )
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Keiron Smith Virginio,
### First Backup Your Data Before Making Any Changes ###
- See here: Importing SN6 data to SN7/SN8 (Or: How I learned to stop worrying and love Sky Data overrides.)
- Rename the "Starry Night 8 Prefs" folders as "Starry Night 8 Prefs-1".
- Restart SN8. A new prefs folder will be created. Register again.
- Change the comets read in at startup to 9,999.
- Restart the app.
- Search for your comet.
### First Backup Your Data Before Making Any Changes ###
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Virginio Oldani Thank you Keiron for your prompt support. I was able to recover the app, and inserted 9,999 at startup preferences, but no way to have the new added comet saved....I also checked the comets.txt file and it is not there.
FYI I am trying to add comet Borrelly 19P that for unknown reasons is missing in the comets list....I checked the comets file at the MPC website and it is there "https://minorplanetcenter.net/iau/Ephemerides/Comets/Soft07Cmt.txt", so I do not understand why SN8 doesn't like it...
By the way, I tried to update the data files (either from the Preferences or from the Help menu), but I always got the message "No files were downloaded. Your data files are all up-to-date. No files were required from the server". However, I checked if a recently discovered comet is listed (C/2022 F2, discovered March 30th) and it is, therefore I understand the file has in some way been updated. But why 19P Borrelly is missing is a mistery...
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