******** 4.2026.5.24 ******** * Fresnel diffraction tool Implemented an improvement in the process for reading the Fresnel diffraction pattern to better represent the light level on a single exposure. ******** 4.2026.5.24 ******** * Fresnel diffraction tool. Revision to handle events where consideration of 2 possible satellites is required. Involves changes in Bob Anderson's program for computing the diffraction pattern, and the code in Occult for generating light curves. Various minor improvements to the Fresnel tool and the Light Curve Viewer * Downloads - flag for AAVSO variables. 'fixed'. ******** 4.2026.5.12 ******** * Fresnel tool. Improved the plot of the ground-plane Fresnel shadow * Asteroid observations. Expanded listing of observers to provide a search based on site longitude. This is to facilitate identifying observations made from the same location but by a different observer. * Asteroid Predictions and Observations. Added a new menu item to display the Hill radius for the current asteroid. The value displayed is one third of the Hill radius - the distance within which a stable satellite orbit might exist. * Light curve reporter, & AOTA, Fixed a bug when reading .csv files generated by PyMovie, in circumstances where the target star was not the first listed star, and there were no stars after the target star. ******** 4.2026.5.3 ******** * Asteroid diameters. Included diameters derived from the Spitzer Space Telescope. * Fresnel tool. Added ability to manually offset the location of the bodies on the ground plane - to facilitate improved ground plane images. Added simple menu item to Save the ground plane image, and the two light curves. ******** 4.2026.4.24 ******** * Re-worked the file of asteroid magnitudes to include uncertainties in oblateness, and the orientation of the axis of rotation, and used this data to display uncertainties in the asteroid shape. Needed for Asteroid Observations analysis. * Fresnel tool. Added capability to add text to the Fresnel ground-plane plot, and to reduce the plot height (without any change to the scale). Added simple menu item to copy each of the three graphics. * Star chart. Added a slider bar to allow for adjustment of the plot scale to facilitate matching the star chart to an image. Reformatted the text in the box for extracting details of selected stars, and made the menu item to enable this box to be more apparent. Made the check-box to set the chart to be 'always on top' of other forms, more obvious. Improved the text in the plot header to ensure relevant data was displayed that was appropriate to the reason for the chart. ******** 4.2026.4.11 ******** * Move/Delete superseded files. Added functionality to manage the light curve files generated by the Fresnel tool. * Light curve viewer, Fresnel light curves. Adjusted to handle the situation where the day + time for the start of the Fresnel light curve is different to that of the normal light curve. (An issue when the light curve starts very close to 0 hrs UT. * Fresnel tool, Import data tab. Consolidated the magnitude values into a single container, with text to indicate that changing the magnitudes does not require the diffraction pattern to be regenerated. Enabled the magnitude with nearby stars value to be updated in the asteroid magnitude is changed. * Fresnel tool. Updating the current data for the Fresnel solution. When the data in the observations editor is updated to match the solution derived in the Fresnel tool, that updated solution can be read into the Fresnel tool to confirm the solution in the editor using the 'Import' option on 'Import data' tab of the Fresnel tool. Changes made to ensure several settings (such as the plot size) are not when this import occurs. ******** 4.2026.3.30 ******** * Light curve viewer, Fresnel Diffraction tool. Fixed a bug that caused problems with the vertical scaling of the Fresnel light curve. ******** 4.2026.3.23 ******** * Light curve viewer. Added slider control to position the top of the light curve of a companion star to the bottom of the light curve for the other star. ******** 4.2026.3.20 ******** * Fresnel tool. Added an option to adjust the Fresnel light drops on the basis that the star is a double star. * Asteroid Observations editor. Provided for planetary satellites to be specified, even if Occult could not predict their events. Satellite range allowed is up to 60 for Jupiter and Saturn, 29 for Uranus and 15 for Neptune. * Asteroid plot form. Ensured correct planet and satellite identifiers were included in the header ******** 4.2026.3.6 ******** * Fresnel tool. Major updates to the tool, and its interactions with the Observations Editor, and the Light Curve Viewer. ******** 4.2026.2.16 beta only ******** * Fresnel tool. In the Light curve viewer added an option to increase the vertical scale of the Fresnel light curve by a factor of 4 (Need for some noisy light curves) * For the time offset setting, changed the smallest increment to 0.005s (but the display remains as 2 decimal points only) * When the light curve generated by the Fresnel tool is too short, changed the way this test is undertaken (it's now a specific number of frames), and provided a more informative explanation of what to do. ******** 4.2026.2.16 beta only ******** * Asteroid observations, fitting the satellite. Added controls to allow the satellite position to be adjusted in x,y - rather than just in Sepn,PA. This is to facilitate adjustments determined from the Fresnel fit, to the fit in the Observations editor. ******** 4.2026.2.13 ******** * Asteroid observations, Observations Editor, panel for setting the solution parameters for the satellite. There has been a long-standing issue with the functioning of the controls on this panel, with it being very difficult at times to make changes to a parameter. THis has been fixed with a major rewrite of how this panel works * Asteroid Observations, Fresnel diffraction. Bob Anderson has written a stand-alone program to generate the Fresnel diffraction pattern of an asteroid as projected onto the Earth. Occult has been updated to use this program, with a new tool to generate the diffraction pattern for an observed event, from that diffraction pattern, derive the expected light curve from each observer's location - based on the assumed diameter and shape of the asteroid - and then compare the expected light curve with the observed light curve. This then allows for the user to change the values of parameters like the diameter of the asteroid or the separation of a satellite, to replicate the observed light curves. The tool is accessed the the Observations Editor under the menu item Solutions ******** 4.2026.1.7 ******** * Asteroid Observations, Statistics. In the display of a listing of asteroids observed in 1 or more occultation events, expanded the listing to include a listing of asteroids by the number of events. The first few lines of the listing are: Count by Asteroid Number # by Number of events # 1 1 Ceres 7 914 Palisana 40 2 2 Pallas 26 409 Aspasia 33 3 3 Juno 13 105 Artemis 32 4 4 Vesta 9 52 Europa 30 [756 asteroids have been observed in 5 or more events.] * Asteroid Observations, files for PDS Archive. Fixed an issue with the file of measured asteroid diameters, where the asteroid's nominal diameter and uncertainty were missing. ******** 4.2026.1.3 ******** * Asteroid Observations. Display of Chord lengths. Several people had reported the functionality of his tool had ceased to work. Problem Identified and fixed. In addition the opportunity was taken to include in the listing the measured shape model diameters for each event listed, together with the Mean plus standard deviation of the diameters from all the shape model fits for that asteroid. + In the course of doing this, rectified an issue in the generation of asteroid diameters for listing in the PDS Archiving of our observations. + Changed the button labels on the Asteroid Observations tab relating to diameters to better indicate the content of that function, and re-ordered them. * Asteroid observations, listing & display of Gaia asteroid magnitudes compared to Horizon's magnitudes. Changed the plotting data so that the vertical axis of the output graph corresponded to the usual magnitude variation plots for variable stars and asteroid rotational light curves. ******** 4.2026.1.1 ******** * Asteroid Observations editor. To facilitate situations where an observer wants/needs to create a complete Observations.xml event file, functionality has been added under the Paste menu to: i. set the event date, star, and asteroid/planet/ comet by a paste of the occultation elements from the prediction. The elements can be copied from the OWC page for the event, or by right-clicking on the Occult world map of an event and selecting the menu item Copy occultation elements.... that is near the bottom of the menu list. ii. Set the observer details. This is done using a new tool that can: A. extract and save the observer details from an existing event - or manually enter and save observer details, AND B. copy saved observer details into the Observer fields of an event. This tool is accessed by either the Paste menu, or a small button at the top-right of the Observer group labeled Auto-fill * Lunar occultations, Multisite predictions, Fixed a bug which resulted in no events being displayed unless the 'output' button had been clicked. * Display of astrometry from occultations - from the Asteroid Observations tab, Astrometric results. A professional astronomer drew attention to the listing apparently being incomplete. Fixed. [It was seriously incomplete, with several factors being involved.] Also made some changes to how events involving Charon (the satellite of Pluto) are displayed. The status change from Planet to Asteroid creates some unique issues in the listing. * Light curve Viewer. Added the ability to vary the vertical scale of a plot within the plot region. This us to assist creating a clear light curve for publication - by being able to ensure the light curve is optimally displayed in the plot area ******** 4.2025.12.22 ******** * Light curve viewer. Added functionality to manage files marked for deletion or review. Reworked the Administrator menu layout. * Lunar occultation predictions, moon map showing the star path(s). Fixed a problem where the orientation of the star path at the points of D and R was incorrect, and for Multisite predictions, an additional issue of the path across the moon being incorrectly located. * Asteroid observations: - Changed output formatting to cater for asteroids numbered over 1 million - On the various listings of events having a particular property (eg Rings, Satellites, Observers), enabled relevant events to be directly opened - by selecting the event line, then right click. - issue of the plot form being displayed when it is not needed - fixed. * Asteroid predictions, List and Display form. If the asteroid is listed in the GaiaMoons catalog, a 'G' is now listed in the satellite column (rather than there being no flag.) * Reporting Astrometry to the MPC. Reworked the interface form, including preventing astrometry of the moons of Mars from being reported (as at this time). ******** 4.2025.12.7 ******** * Asteroid observations editor, list of Historical Events to select for display. Revised the Sort so that: * events for any object in the Planet/Comet list are sorted by date; * the list sorted by the number of chords is sorted by the number of records when the number of chords are the same * the list sorted by the number of records is sorted by the number of chords when the number of records are the same. * List and Display form. Added a note at the top of the form to indicate the checks limit the output on the basis that if an event doesn't have the item checked, it is excluded from the output. * Shape model display. Added an option to have the presence of the asteroid and shape model identifiers optional * Asteroid Observations Editor, Plot options. Provided menu options on the plot form to select a range of parameters relevant to the appearance of the shape model, without having to select the values on the Shape Model display form. * Double stars - single component observed in an asteroid occultations. Imposed a limit on the minimum separation, of 0.3 mas - consistent with the consequences of Fresnel diffraction effects. Added the star's diameter to the display of results, to better highlight when a reduced mag drop may be due to the effects of stellar diameter. * Reporting astrometry to the MPC. Changed the sort order of observer name so that compound family names were sorted in the same order as the MPC listings. REdesigned the form layout for making those reports. ******** 4.2025.11.22 ******** * Asteroid observations editor. When a new event is opened a check is made for whether that event has already been included. For the notification of this situation, the names of the observers for the existing event are now included - to assess whether there are extra observers in the new file. * Asteroid observations editor, display of shape models Further changes to ensure the correct orientation of a shape model was displayed when a different event involving the same asteroid was opened. * Asteroid observations editor, Shape model fitting. On the panel for setting the Shape Model fit details, a short text explanation of the selected shape model fit is provided. * Light curve viewer. When a user-selected height line is set (by a right-click) on the plot, ensured the line location and associated height values were maintained when the vertical scale of the plot is changed. ******** 4.2025.11.13 ******** * Asteroid predictions, List & Display. Added a column giving the shadow rate if motion (km/sec), and the ability (under Sort events...) to sort from slowest to fastest motion. NOTE: This is the motion on the Fundamental plane. It does not include the motion of the observer caused by the Earth's rotation. In extreme circumstances, the motion caused by the Earth's rotation can be larger than the asteroid's motion. * Asteroid predictions, Converting MPCORB/ASTORB/ AstDys2 to the format used in Occult. Fixed a bug in v.4.2025.10.2, where (in effect) changing the source to something other than MPCORB was effectively impossible. * Light curve processing. Improved the check for duplicate light curves. * Unreported light curves. Expanded the functionality added in 4.2025.11.7 to allow access to the tool from both the Light Curve Viewer, and the Light Curve Reported. ******** 4.2025.11.7 ******** * Occult start up, unreported light curves. Added functionality on the form that appears, to delete or move files. * Asteroid observations editor. Reformatted the line above the list of observers to better display the details of the astrometry as reported to the Minor Planet Center. The data displayed are: ☻ the date the astrometry was filed with the Minor Planet center ☻ the Minor Planet Circular number giving the summary of that astrometry (and a list of observers) ☻ as a Tool tip (which appears when the cursor hovers over these data elements) the unique Observation identifier for that astrometry. ******** 4.2025.11.4 ******** * Observations Editor, loading event files created with the 'Asteroid Report to XML' program (AstRepToXML.exe) This tool is a critical tool for bringing together the various observations for an event to create a single event file. This tool deliberately and correctly limits the information about the star and asteroid to their identification only. Unfortunately this was not adequately handled when the file was opened in Occult. Changed Occult to ensure the 'assumed' diameter of the asteroid was set when the file was opened, and to avoid an error if the event involved a 'single component of a double star'. ******** 4.2025.11.2 ******** * Observations Editor, Shape models. Fixed an issue with the shape model initially not being displayed in the correct orientation if the main shape model form had been closed. [Problem arose from the changes in 4.2025.10.19] * Asteroid predictions - List and Display, filters. Changed the filter that checked for whether an event was listed in Steve Prestons' Future predictions, to a filter of the distance of the path from the geocenter. This is relevant/needed when incorporating Lucky Star predictions, to exclude a large number of events that miss the Earth by large distances. ******** 4.2025.10.26 ******** * Observations editor. Change the simple Review flag to a drop-down list of multiple issues for review. The items to be included in the list are yet to be settled. * Observations editor. Added new functionality to retrieve star diameter estimates from Gaia. The new functionality is under List... Star diameter - accurate Gaia estimate from VizieR ******** 4.2025.10.21 ******** * Observations editor. Fixed a problem from 4.2025.10.19 which resulted in the double star panel not displaying * Shape model display in Observations editor. Improved the clarity of the shape model profile ******** 4.2025.10.19 ******** * Observations editor. If observer data is entered with one or more relating to a satellite without the details of the asteroid having been set, an error occurred if the event was then displayed on the plot of the event. In this situation a message is now displayed advising of the situation. Click OK to continue. The message will appear several times, as well as asking whether you want to create a satellite entry. Keep clicking through, and at the end the focus will return to the editor, and the star and asteroid details will be populated. * Observations editor, display of shape models. Fixed a bug which was preventing the correct model to be displayed in certain circumstances. On the form that displays the Shape Models, (i) the maximum/minimum buttons have been removed (ii) if the Asteroid Observations Editor is open and you try to close theShape model form, you will be warned not to close the form. * Light curve viewer: (i) added a menu option to save the displayed light curve as a .csv file - located in the 'Generated Files' folder of Occult. The file name includes the asteroid number, event date + time, and observer name. File format is that of Tangra. (ii) added a menu option to include a 2nd time marker on a plot (used to indicate where an event seen by another observer would be located on this curve ******** 4.2025.10.9 ******** * Variable stars. The currently downloaded AAVSO file has one entry that erroneously has Unicode characters in the field for spectral type. These characters effectively prevented the file being efficiently searched for an entry. Problem fixed. ******** 4.2025.10.7 ******** * Variable stars. 'Repaired' the download for the AAVSO Index catalog. [The folder structure at VizieR had changed.] Also added a new option for downloading. The previous full download from VizieR is maintained, with the user being able to specify a magnitude limit. A 2nd download option is provided, to download a file from the Occult server, with limits having been fixed for that file, * DAMIT Shape models. Added a download option for users to _update_ their list of shape model files direct from DAMIT, rather than replacing all shape model files. * Asteroid Observation editor, display of shape models. A long-standing 'hidden' issue fixed. [The Shape model orientation in the Editor is set on the basis of the mean of all positive event times. When a file is loaded, that time is automatically computed. However when event times are updated, or new events added, the shape model orientation was not being updated. Generally this did not create a problem, but under certain circumstances the model orientation could be significantly in error when observations were being added. That error did not occur when the event was written to a file, and reloaded.] * There are two locations to change the shape model displayed in the Observations editor, and on the Shape Model form. The functionality associated with the shape model form has been updated to ensure the certain color indications and labels on the Observation Editor are appropriately changed. ******** 4.2025.10.2 ******** * Double stars. Added capability to display nearby stars, and a star chart. * Asteroid Predictions/Reductions. Expanded the 'Nearby stars' function to cover stars out to 30" from the target. Also included the faint limit for stars to be included (which is 2.0 mags fainter than the target star). * Observations, sky plane plot of an event. Made sure a star with a significant diameter was always displayed when an event was opened - with an option to suppress that display. * Asteroid predictions, Conversion of MPCORB etc. Added buttons to download the relevant files, without having to go to the Maintenance, Downloads page. * Asteroid predictions, event identifier in the .xml file. Added an '_H' to the first field when the prediction is based on the Horizons ephemeris, and expanded the MJD of the time of the prediction to 0.0001 days (= ~8 secs) ******** 4.2025.9.10 ******** * 'Emergency' update. The latest version of MPCORB includes two lines which can't be read properly, as they fail to give the eccentricity, semimajor axis and MeanAnomaly. Added long overdue error-trapping to identify such errors and to display the lines in MPCORB that could not be read. ******** 4.2025.9.9 ******** * Asteroid predictions, Search Engine. Identified and fixed a deficiency the could occur in the first 12 hours (approx) of the day in which the asteroid reached its stationary point in RA. * Light curve viewer. Change the basis on which the time scale was plotted, to ensure adequate time markers irrespective of the plot scale. ^Added a Vertical Scale value to the vertical scale slider, with that value being adjusted for any changed in the overall height of the plot. That is, in comparison to another light curve the form overlies, the plot scale value to match the overlaid light curve remains the same if the Light Curve Viewer form height is changed. ^Revised the plotting of the time markers so that so that they remained clear when located above the zero height line. * Asteroid statistics. List of observations for each region. Expanded to give two list for each region to facilitate comparison with local lists of events. One in ascending date, the other in descending date ******** 4.2025.8.29 beta ******** * Asteroid Observations editor, display of the expected magnitude drop. The fix made in 4.2025.8.28 was seriously flawed, creating nonsense mag drops for almost all events. Now properly fixed. ******** 4.2025.8.28 beta ******** * Asteroid Observations editor, display of the expected magnitude drop. Fixed an error in the computation of the mag drop for annular occultations. * Asteroid Observations editor, sky-plane plot, The numbers next to the check boxes at top right are the corrections computed from a least-squares fit to the chords. Where the data is limited (especially for single chord events) the least squares calculation can give misleading results. For the quantities for X and Y - if the indicated correction is greater than 1.2 times the asteroid's radius, the displayed value is '---'. ******** 4.2025.8.23 ******** * Asteroid~Observations file. Fixed an issue with line tags, where the tag was erroneously used in two different contexts. [This flaw has been present since the current .xml format was implemented many years ago.] * Asteroid observations, Single-component double stars. Set the uncertainty in the PA to ±45° * Lunar occultation predictions, Filter option. Added a filter based on the altitude of the star. ******** 4.2025.8.17 ******** * Observations editor. If the form that plots the event was not open when an observation was opened, some of the parameters in the plot form were not populated with the values in the file just opened. This included events in the Historical files. Fixed. * Predictions, Plot of planetary appearances. Fixed a bug where Jupiter was always drawn when the plot was called from occultation prediction plots. * Observations editor, Opening a file. If the file was being checked for errors when opened, the code automatically assumed the user had the GoogleMaps API installed. Changed code so that if the API was not installed, the code wouldn't take forever to open a file. ******** 4.2025.8.4 Beta only ******** * Asteroid Observations, Compilation mode. Ensured the checks done when an event is saved to the Historical file are also made when adding to the compilation file. * Functionality to display in the Observations editor alternative star identifiers has been restored. * AOTA, and Light Curve generator. In circumstances Where there is a serious problem with the time base of the recording (especially significantly-variable times between exposures) included a menu option to turn off the filling in of missing frames. IMPORTANT: turning this functionality off means the displayed light curve cannot be assumed to have the data points equally spaced in time. Also, when a light curve is read and an automatic fit occurs, the final display is now of Tab 5, not 6. ******** 4.2025.8.3 ******** * MPCORB Fixed an issue that prevented MPCORB from being converted. Issue was caused by a small change in the MPCORB format (a field being right-justified when it was previously Left-justified) with the code I wrote for this conversion some 15 years ago not handling the small format change. * Variable stars, Download AAVSO list of variables. Updated to download the latest version, which is not available in a zipped format. The file has recently grown immensely (to greater than 2GB) as a result of the inclusion of variable stars from Gaia. As a result, the code now downloads the entire file (in a csv format), but creates a file for use in Occult that is limited to stars having a maximum magnitude brighter than 16.0, with the magnitude variation being greater than a values set by the user. The available range is 0.50 to 0.0, with 0.20 being the default value. ******** 4.2025.8.2 ******** * File of Asteroid Observations. As a result of the next item, the file format for asteroidal occultation observations has been expanded to include a new data element. Anyone who uses the Asteroid Observations Editor should update Occult AND download the latest Asteroid Observations at the same time. * Double stars. Some extensive changes to the displaying of the results of double star observations (which are almost always discoveries). THe reason for these changes derive from facilitating the publication of observations in the Journal of Double Star Observations (JDSO), reporting observation results to the WDS in the format they require, when results are published in the JDSO, overall management of double star observations to avoid duplicate reporting - including keeping a record of relevant JDSO publications, whether the pair is in the WDS, and whether an event indicates the star is a double star, but a solution hasn't been undertaken. Also, from the display of double star observations for asteroidal occultations, where light curves are available, they can be displayed with an easy click on an event, with an option to save each graphic image for an event as a file. * Asteroid predictions, Multipath plot. Added an option to exclude path labels from the plot. ******** 4.2025.7.26 ******** * i. Lunar observations - report form. Made changes to prevent accented characters being used for the observer's name and site location, plus comment fields. ii. Lunar reductions. Added code to better identify observations where non-ASCII characters have been used (typically for observer names or locations). This is essential for archiving at VizieR, where the file is a fixed-field ASCII file, with the problem being the fact that accented characters require two fields in the file, rather than just 1. This issue of accented characters has long been dealt with for Asteroid observations, where the observer name must be in pure ASCII for publication at the Minor Planet Center. * Star details - estimation of spectral type from color magnitudes. Fixed an overflow problem. * Ephemerides tab - Magnitude calculator. Added a field to expressly display the ratio of axes of an asteroid representative of a magnitude variation * Asteroid observations, plot of an event, display of a grid. Highlighted every 5th or 10th line of the grid * Asteroid observations editor. Under 'List... Event Coordinates on the fundamental plane', added to the output the PA of motion of the star relative to the asteroid. That data element is needed for computations of Fresnel diffraction (which is not undertaken by Occult). * Observations editor. Included test functionality to enable the generation of 'finalised & reviewed' event files that can simply be added to the main observations file without further review. Not yet documented in the Help file. This is an essential component of a long-standing desire for observations of an event to be fully processed and quality assured by the regional analyst teams, avoiding the need for a central review process. Of course, for this to work, quality assurance processes must be in place to deal with the full range of issues that can occur. This requires the analysts gaining experience on the wide range of issues that need to be considered when assessing an event (including double star and satellite discoveries, as well as querying the results of an event which look questionable or dubious, and being prepared to disagree with the observer (in the rare instances where this is needed.) This is an ongoing process that has been in place for well over a year, and is progressing very well. ******** 4.2025.7.7 beta release only ******** * Asteroid predictions, creating file of Occult Watcher Personal feed. Fixed a problem that occurred when the mag drop in red was not provided * Asteroid observations, double star's listing. Anded a format to be used when reporting observations direct to the WDS catalog managers ******** 4.2025.7.5 ******** * Asteroid predictions, Comet C/2025 N1 or 3I. Fixed an issue with retrieving error data from Horizons. * AOTA, & Report a light curve. Fixed an issue if the time for a line in the file was either 0, or had a large difference from the previous/following times ******** 4.2025.7.4 ******** * Code adjustments to enable predictions of interstellar object I3 = C/2025 N1. Where an object's diameter is unknown, applied a default value of 10 km * Asteroid observations, plot of the event. Added a menu item to not plot the known orbits of satellites for the asteroid being displayed. The setting to display the orbits will always be turned on when Occult is started. * Light curve viewer. Several changes made to facilitate overlaying a light curve (for example, a light curve generated using a model) with an observed light curve, to better facilitate matching a synthetic light curve to an observed light curve. Rectified an issue with the 'Plot All' function for an asteroid selected by number. * Light curve viewer, plot of light curves, info at bottom left. Added plot duration (as well as the step interval) ******** 4.2025.6.22 ******** * Asteroid search. Fixed an error associated with the first fix in 4.2052.6.21. Error was missed because of inadequate testing! * Accessing the Interferometric Catalog. This catalog is no longer being updated/maintained by USNO. So while it contains useful information, Occult will no longer indicate the current version is out of date. ******** 4.2025.6.21 ******** * Asteroid search. Fixed a file read problem that occurred if the declination of the asteroid was south of -89° 53' * Asteroid Observations editor. Included a display of the diameter of a circle equivalent to the axes of the displayed ellipse. Also listed the assumed diameter of the asteroid with the check-box for using the assumed diameter. This is to facilitate setting the dimensions of an ellipse to match that of the assumed diameter when there is insufficient data to derive all parameters of an ellipse fit. * Asteroid Observations editor. File checking when opening or pasting - provided clearer menu options to turn this function on/off * Form for displaying the path coordinates of an event. Fixed a problem of the form moving if the Observations editor was open. ******** 4.2025.6.12 ******** * Asteroid Observations Editor, sky-plane plot. Added the capability to add text to the header text. For use where there are multiple solutions for the event, and plots for each of those solutions need to be distinguished - such as by 'option 1' etc * Asteroid Observations editor. Display of light curves when an event is displayed. Ensured light curves that had been submitted but not yet added to the main file are displayed. * Asteroid Observations editor. Expanded validity check when a file is opened, or pasted, to include a check of the 'Approximate mid-time of event'. * Asteroid predictions, Multipath plot. Fixed a bug so that the event details were printed at the mid-point of the path as visible in the plot. ******** 4.2025.6.2 ******** * Asteroid Observations Editor. Added a new capability, to retrieve Gaia magnitude measurements of asteroids, and use certain photometric data (already within Occult) to assist with considering some circumstances associated with potential asteroidal satellite observations. The functionality can only be accessed through the Observations Editor, in association with an event displayed in the editor. * Asteroid predictions. Fixed some bugs in the generation of the list of nearby stars, that resulted in erroneous results being returned in some limited circumstances * Asteroid diameters from NEOWISE etc. Fixed up some bugs in displaying the values. [Issue: on the advice via NEOWISE, the uncertainty values in the NEOWISE (as well as IRAS and AcuA) needed to be increased over that specified in the catalogs. Under some circumstances, that increase was being applied twice. * Check for INTERNET availability at Occult start-up. Added a 2nd address to test in case the first address was locally 'down' * Download flag for Asteroid light curve data base [LCDB] increased from 6 months to 15 months, as the LCDB file is only updated every 12 months ******** 4.2025.5.24 ******** * Asteroidal satellites. Given the frequency they are now being discovered, several changes to facilitate keeping track of such observations. Specifically: * In the Asteroid Observations file, added a new field to record the CBET number for the event where the satellite was discovered * In the option on the Asteroid Observations tab, (b) Binary asteroids, added a display of the CBET number, and included an option to simply list all the discovery events via the CBET number * For the purpose of archiving our observations at NASA's Planetary Data System (PDS), created a new file for including in the archive, listing the asteroidal satellite observations and the basic values derived therefrom. ******** 4.2025.5.22 ******** * AOTA, & Light curve reporting tool. Made some changes relating to reading .csv files from LiMovie, including avoiding an error message generated in error. ******** 4.2025.5.20 ******** * Asteroid observations editor. Provided option for miss chords to plot as dashed or continuous * Asteroid predictions. Fixed a bug which prevented an alert for taxonomic classification to be displayed on the prediction plot * Asteroid predictions for planetary satellites. Inserted an error trap when the file needed within Horizons to generate a satellite ephemeris is not available. * Asteroid observations, light curves. Occasionally light curve files I receive have one or more end-of-line breaks in the sequence of light curve values. Put in place a mechanism to automatically correct this situation. ******** 4.2025.5.2 ******** * Asteroid Observations, retaining location & size of forms. Ensured the locations were saved if the Main Occult form was closed, not just the Observations Editor * Ephemeris tab, Ephemeris for asteroids and comets. Increased the allowable period for the ephemeris from 300 to 900 days. * Plot of light curves. Added capability to incorporate user text in the Header line. And a marker on the time axis for a specified time. ******** 4.2025.4.25 beta release only ******** * Asteroid observations, Fresnel diffraction. Added a Help topic that incorporates graphics of expected light curves for circular asteroids having diameters 0.5, 1.0, 2.0 and 5.0 km, at geocentric distances of 2, 4 , 10 and 20 AU. Accessible from the Observations Editor under List... Fresnel diffraction light curve examples. The help topic does not yet have explanatory text. ******** 4.2025.4.14 ******** * Asteroid Observation editor. Revised the plot menu to include more options for plotting events. * Asteroid observations, one-component double stars. Revised the minimum separation value to properly have regard to the observed chord length. ******** 4.2025.4.6 ******** * Asteroid observations, double stars. Updated the arrangements to cater for double star discoveries where the occultation involves just one star of a double star. This situation is detected when the observed light curve drop is significantly less than the predicted light curve drop. * Asteroid observations, statistics. Added capability to list the number of observers by region * Asteroid Observations, display of light curves. Fixed a problem of retrieving a light curve when there are many light curves for an object. ******** 4.2025.3.8 ******** * Asteroid observations, double stars. i. added 2 fields to the Observations file format to record when a double star result is submitted for publication, and the publication reference when it is published. ii. Added 2 fields in the double star solution box to provide for entry of that data iii. Major revision to the form for displaying double star observation results, to more fully display the data derived from the observation, allow the data to be sorted on a range of parameters, facilitate people finding their past discoveries (by providing a name search capability), and displaying publication details. iv. Updated the routines and documents associated with creating the files required for PDS archiving. * Light curves, display. A light curve is normally a series of substantially equally spaced exposures of equal duration, providing a continuous cover of the light curve variation. Occasionally, and for a variety of reasons, some light curves may have intervals between exposures that are in the order of an exposure duration or more. In this situation, the light curve does not provide continuous cover. To better indicate where a light curve has incomplete coverage, the light curve plot is now drawn with a bar graph under the usual set of data points. In a 'complete' light curve, this has the effect of filling the region under the light curve with a light blue color. For a light curve that has significant variations in the interval between exposures, the region under the light curve highlights the location of any such gap. ******** 4.2025.2.24 ******** * Asteroid Observations editor; Maintenance, display position of a star. Fixed a problem with retrieving the position of a star from its Hipparcos number. Again, a problem associated with the changes I made to accessing the Gaia catalogs. * Asteroid Observations editor. Disabled automatic updating of the time of Miss events, if there are no +'ve events. ******** 4.2025.2.20 ******** * Lunar occultations, reduction of observations. fixed an issue where, under certain circumstances, the Gaia catalogs were not accessed when computing the reduction of observations. * Display of Shape Models. Change a test for assessing the validity of the date of an observation, to 1850 (rather than 1900), to accommodate an 'occultation' by (42) Isis on 1856 ******** 4.2025.2.13 ******** * Asteroid statistics. Added a new column to provide a count of events involving asteroids smaller than 3.0 km * Asteroid observations, saving the plot and its legend. Made file name for the legend consistent with that used for the plot save, and tied the saving of the legend to whether or not sites are numerically identified in the plot. * Asteroid Observations editor. Fixed an issue whereby ISAM models were not included in the data read, if the Asteroid Observations file format version was 2.10 or 2.11. * Predictions of occultations by the major planets. When the total duration of an event is greater than 2 hours, the plot for the usual asteroid occultation is plotted such that the event circumstances at any location along the path are correctly displayed when the path is double-clicked at any location. However this plot arrangement results in misleading plots for occultations by the major planets, where the path is typically wider than the earth. Occultations by the major planets (but not their satellites) is now excluded from this varied plotting arrangement. * Lunar occultations, list of 172 known graze observations not present in the dataset. Updated the code to display the list, following from the removal in June 2022 of place holders in the Archive files. ******** 4.2025.2.3 ******** * Asteroid Observations. Added a tool to do a text search of the free text fields of each observer in each event. Accessed via the Asteroid Observations tab, in the Maintenance group * Asteroid observations, plot form. Added option to watermark a plot with 'Provisional'. Improved the coloring of the watermarks. * Asteroid observations, plot form. Started changes to the drop down menu of Plot options to ensure the full list remained on the screen ******** 4.2025.2.1 ******** * Asteroid Predictions, & Observations Editor: Added display option to list binary asteroid details of a Known- or GaiaMoons- binary asteroid. * Asteroid observations editor. Added a notification if an asteroid was listed as a known binary asteroid, or in the Gaia-Moons list. * Asteroid predictions. Alert message for the asteroid being in the list of possible binary asteroids, was being generated for all unnumbered asteroids. Fixed. * Asteroid Predictions, & Observations Editor: Added a link to display the relevant page on the JPL Small Bodies Database - for asteroids and comets. * Asteroid observations. Add the capability to estimate the orbital period, or the radius of the orbit, for binary asteroids. Functionality can be accessed via the 'List...' menu drop-down, or from the panel for solving the parameters of a binary asteroid. * Asteroid mutual events. Fixed up an issue with computing the path uncertainty on the Earth. * Lunar reductions. Fixed an issue with accessing the Gaia catalog files. [Gaia is not used for predictions, as the extra precision is not required.] ******** 4.2025.1.25 ******** * Observations editor: Fixed an issue with an erroneous drop caused by nearby stars. Problem was present from the original implementation of the nearby-adjusted light drop in the editor. * Light curve viewer; asteroid observations sky-plane Plot. Further enhancements to assist generating images suitable for publication. This includes a slider control in the Light Curve viewer, to vary the height of the light curve plot. * Asteroid observations, Statistics. With display of the statistics for stars by RUWE value, added a menu option to copy the event identifications for stars having an RUWE of 1.40 or greater corresponding to the period set for the RUWE graphic. [Note: RUWE values larger than 12.6 are stored in the Occult Gaia subsets with a value of 12.6.] ******** 4.2025.1.18 ******** * Light curves. Added ability to Save the displayed light curve as an image. Added extra text to the plots to assist with interpretation, and also to meet with a request from CBAT to include light curves and a sky plane plot with CBET's for asteroidal satellite discoveries. [These will not in the CBET itself, but on the CBAT web site.] A specific plot option has been added to the sky plane plot of the event in the Observations Editor, for this same purpose. * Managing files. Added Resource Files folder. Added capability to display the content of most files. Fixed error if no KMZ prediction files had ever been created by the user * Asteroid search. Fixed a problem with asteroid search function associated with the issue of selecting a relevant Gaia catalog for assessing nearby stars. * Asteroid predictions, Multisite predictions. Made some minor improvements to its functionality, so that (i) site coords were displayed to 1" (rather than 0.1'), and (ii) an option to change the probability calculation between 1-sigma and 3-sigma. ******** 4.2025.1.8 ******** * Default settings. Fixed a bug in the page for setting defaults. Again , an issue associated with the changes associated with the Gaia catalogs. ******** 4.2025.1.7 ******** * Light curve generation for the Asteroid Observations Editor. Fixed a bug that prevented the light curve from being generated. * Star chart generation. Code to better handle the Gaia catalogues required further revision. [There was a bug with the star chart functionality that created an error in some circumstances, if not all the Gaia catalogues were ion the PC.] Added capability to retain a list of stars for which positions and magnitudes have been selected from the map, with the ability to highlight any of those stars on the map, and to copy the list of stars. This functionality has been added to assist with the increasing number of potential asteroidal satellite discoveries, with the need to identify suitable comparison stars for assessing magnitude drops, with having a record of which stars have been used. The added capability accessed under with Plot... Show comparison star details ******** 4.2025.1.4 ******** * Star Chart - extracting details of a star by clicking on it. Fixed an issue of failing to identify a star if the chart was both rotated and flipped. * Star catalog handling. Revised code to better handle the selection of Gaia catalogues. For any Gaia magnitude file (e.g. Gaia16_xxx) only the most recent version is listed for use * AOTA, & light curve generation. Changed the default settings for showing comparison stars to 'checked', so that by default the light curves for all comparison stars are displayed. The aim is to ensure comparison star light curves are always considered when assessing the existence of an event. * Managing files within Occult. Have added an option on the Main Menu, Maintenance, to 'delete' files that are no longer needed. The current sets of files are the Gaia catalogs, GoogleEarth kmz files of path predictions, predictions, observations, and downloaded files. The tool provides two options: (i) move them into a new folder called (FilesForDeletion), and (ii) a deletion of the files (they are NOT recoverable from the Recycle Bin). This is an initial version of the tool. I may add more directories. ******** 4.2024.12.28 ******** * Star diameters. Updated the Gaia catalogue files to include star diameters from Gaia DR3. The angular diameter is based on the FLAME estimation of the star radius in solar radii, converted to the apparent star diameter using the star's parallax. The number of diameters added were 2,797,868 from spectral assessment, and 689,113 from photometric assessment, for a total of 3,486,981 diameters (4.45% of stars) Diameters range up to 7.8 mas, with 380 stars > 3.0mas. Files with the star diameters included are Gaia16_DR3, Gaia14_DR3, Gaia12_DR3, and Gaia9_DR3. The _EDR3 files are no longer available for download. FLAME is detailed at https://gea.esac.esa.int/archive/documentation/GDR3/Data_analysis/chap_cu8par/sec_cu8par_apsis/ssec_cu8par_apsis_flame.html * Occult generally: The routine for estimating star diameters from their color magnitudes has been removed. Diameters from the CHARM2/CADARS catalogues are used in place of the Gaia diameters only if their diameter is greater than 1.0 mas, and there are at least 2 measurements. ******** 4.2024.12.16 ******** * Asteroid Observations. Astrometry reports to the MPC. Made the changes to record the date of submission, and a unique Observation ID allocated by the MPC for each accepted observation. This follows from the changes being made at the MPC about how they handle observations. Provision is also made to add the MPC number of the summary report of the observations. NOTE This required a change in the format of the observations file, to record the Observation ID. The will result in a warning message if you have updated one of the observation file, or Occult, without updating the other. ******** 4.2024.12.12 ******** * Ephemerides, Magnitude calculator. Expanded functionality to properly compute the magnitudes corresponding to light curve levels, by using the Limiting Magnitude of the recording to set the zero light level. Also added a tool to derive the required mag drop to determine an asteroidal satellite detection when the expected magnitude drop is not large. * Downloads. Fixed a problem with downloading the file StarNames_Hipparcos.csv ******** 4.2024.12.9 ******** * Occult via OW. Fixed an issue that arose with version 4.2024.9.2, with the 'Bad Hipparcos' star entry fix. The file required file was downloaded the first time Occult was used to generate a prediction. However if Occult was opened via OccultWatcher without having previously generated a prediction, the download was mot triggered, and a file not error would be reported. * AOTA. In the Integrity check form, added an option to display the seconds to 4 decimal places. * AOTA, Saving plot images, and the report. Added an option to save some extra text as part of the file name. For example, it might be the user's family name, or a site identifier for a multi-site deployment. When there are multiple observers/reports for an event, this enables regional coordinators/analysts to readily identify all files relating to a particular site. In particular, it enables all submitted files for an event to be stored in the same folder without any confusion of which files are for the same site. [For users of Tangra: the .xls report file already includes the observer's name in the file name.] ******** 4.2024.11.29 ******** * Predictions, Binary asteroids. Expanded list of binary asteroids for searching, to include all in Johnson's list of binary asteroids. The capability to search specifically for binary asteroids is provided on the Search form, by selecting the relevant Taxonomic Class of asteroids. Also added the function to update the list, to the Asteroid Predictions tab. * AOTA. Expanded the capability to set a mean full-light level, with the cursor displaying the % light level - as implemented in 4.2024.11.26 ******** 4.2024.11.26 ******** * Occult program. Compiled to use .Net 4.8, to ensure functionality on new PC installations * Light Curve reporter, Light curve Viewer. Added an option to set a mean full-light level, with the cursor displaying the % light level referenced to that mean light level. Intention is to make it easier to assess % light drops in a light curve. * Asteroid predictions. Added capability to generate predictions using Horizons elements for an object, supplied by Horizons. [Special request only. Rarely needed.] ******** 4.2024.11.8 ******** * AOTA and Light Curve reporter. Identified and fixed a problem that arose when dealing with missing frames, or a sequence of frames having significant differences in their time stamps (eg caused by delays in saving the image due to port delays). Improved messaging following user feedback. Updated the HelpFile. ******** 4.2024.11.5 Beta release only ******** * Double star discoveries - asteroidal. Included the star's RUWE value in the output * Asteroidal occultations, Statistics. Included an option to plot the number of observations against the RUWE value of the occulted stars * AOTA, and Light curve reporter, Added a preliminary of .csv file data to identify lines with an erroneous number of fields, and lines where one or more of the fields is empty. * General. Ensured the definition of the Besselian year was up-to-date. Ensured stellar parallax was computed with reference to the solar barycenter, not the Sun. ******** 4.2024.10.26 ******** * Asteroid diameters. Two issues. Firstly, updated the list of asteroids having NEOWISE diameters to include asteroids withing the range of 1-660000 [previously it was 1-550000] This does not mean every asteroid in that range has a NEOWISE diameter. It is very much the opposite. Rather the NEOWISE data included many unnumbered asteroids which are now numbered, and these have been included Second issue. In the reductions process, it can be that the length of a single chord is much greater than would be expected from the nominal asteroid diameter - raising the question of whether the asteroid is highly elongate versus whether the nominal diameter is wrong. To assist with assessing this issue, another file has been added that gives access to the individual NEOWISE and Akari AcuA diameters. * Ephemerides, Magnitude calculator. For calculation of the component magnitudes when there is a step event in the light curve, improved the messaging to better indicate when a particular order of events does not have a valid solution * Asteroid predictions, and Reductions. Added the capability o displaying the orbit of a satellite when the required orbital elements are known. A specific example is (4337) Arecibo * Asteroid observations, astrometry. Working with JPL, identified a number of issues affecting the astrometric result at the sub-mas level. * Asteroid predictions, expected light drops when the target star has a significant diameter. On the Occult world plot of an event, a menu option has been added to give direct access to the Light Curve prediction tool, with the relevant fields being populated with the data for the event. ******** 4.2024.10.13 ******** * General release, moving Occult to a new server, with public implementation of the changes in 4.2024.10.5, and 10.12 ******** 4.2024.10.12 limited beta release, for testing only ******** * Moved Occult to a new server. Change should be transparent to users. All data updates will occur via the new server. Failure to update OCCULT will mean that updated data files will not be available. * Asteroid predictions. Added Alert notice on the world plot form, for Gaia Binary Asteroid Candidates. Almost all such asteroids have two solutions. The Alert provides the separation and its uncertainty (km), the likely diameter of the satellite, and the possible duration of a central occultation. ******** 4.2024.10.5 ******** * Asteroid predictions and reductions, Nearby stars. Identified and fixed a problem that occurred when the target star had a TYC identifier with the first group of digits starting with a zero. The problem resulted in one or more false nearby stars and an associated false magnitude drop. * Lunar predictions, Moon map. Following a user request, changed the B&W plot of the moon to have the sunlit portion white, and the un-illuminated portion dark. Adjusted colors used in the color plot. * Asteroid observations editor. Made a code change to prevent the specification of 24.0 hrs as the approximate time of mid-event. This was necessary to prevent users from inadvertently specifying event times that were treated as being on the wrong day. * Asteroid observations editor, plot of event chords. Made adjustments to the color used for some events, to make the chords more visible * Asteroid observations editor, plot of event chords. At the bottom right of the plot, displayed the the width of the plot in km. * Light curve editor. Provided tool to swap the longitude and latitude values, and swap the sign of longitude, and the sign of latitude, between + & -. ******** 4.2024.9.5 ******** * Asteroid predictions. Fixed a problem with an incorrect magnitude for non-numbered asteroids. ******** 4.2024.9.2 ******** * Asteroid predictions, world map plot. Added a context menu item to list nearby stars within 30". * Light curve viewer - added option to select events by date - useful for when the light curve file has the wrong asteroid number. Also to increment/decrement the light curve record number * Fix for invalid HIP stars added. A small file will be downloaded the first time it is required. The file (to be found in the Resource Files/Gaia folder) 'Gaia_ED3_BadHipStars.csv' gives a list of all Hip stars affected, and the corresponding identifier. In the observations file, 18 events update to give the catalogue identifier needed to match the DR3 position in the Occult Gaia subset files. ast HIP New star ID Date 9| 47352 UCAC4 552-46189 * |1979-12-11 33| 110000 J221648.05-124953.1 |2014-05-24 72| 48618 UCAC4 486-51277 * |2003-11-05 189| 42917 J084445.02+100453.7 |2018-02-15 201| 47706 J094336.49+132630.4 |2000-03-25 252| 68038 UCAC4 402-055777 |2012-04-18 275| 67385 UCAC4 436-058413 |1985-04-15 324| 59807 UCAC4 381-062388 |2007-04-20 329| 71779 UCAC4 418-060247 * |2013-03-07 356| 51388 UCAC4 535-051261 |2002-11-28 536| 113058 UCAC4 271-197499 * |1997-09-19 595| 68025 UCAC4 377-066100 |2015-04-15 705| 51222 UCAC4 657-052919 |2012-01-02 994| 45688 J091850.60+364807.3 |2023-01-12 1309| 28558 J060139.82+105439.5 |2012-11-24 1564| 94925 UCAC4 396-113531 |1991-09-11 2476| 47258 UCAC4 571-046858 |2022-06-07 2578| 34773 UCAC4 625-038345 |2008-02-29 The stars marked with asterisks were HIP stars that were not matched to Gaia DR2 positions, but are clearl;y present in DR3. * Asteroid predictions, Edit User Elements. Added a button in the block to import comet elements, to download the latest set of comet elements from the MPC. A current file is required, to list all available comets. * AOTA. Adjusted code for reading a Tangra file, to cover the situation where a time stamp is missing. ******** 4.2024.8.17 ******** * Asteroid Observations editor. Implemented the asteroid magnitude changes, including adjusting the displayed magnitude drop for the effect of nearby stars * Asteroid Observations editor. Included a function to check submitted observations reports for certain omissions. For Administrator use. * Asteroid List & Display. Increased the range of magnitudes that can be set for filtering ******** 4.2024.8.9 ******** * Asteroid predictions. Fully implemented the calculation of asteroid magnitudes color magnitudes including phase effects and effects of the orientation of a relevant oblate spheroid. * Predictions of occultations by the major planets. Changed the way moons are selected, to allow selection of the small moons without the main moons being included. ******** 4.2024.7.19 beta version only - for assessing ******** * Asteroid predictions. Added the capability to generate both visual and red magnitudes of asteroids, together with an uncertainty value. The data used for this covers 122,369 asteroids numbered between 12 and 622608. The completeness of coverage is: Range # missing 1- 20 18 = 90% 1- 10,000 143 = 1.4% 1- 20,000 304 = 1.5% 1- 30,000 649 = 2.2% 1- 40,000 1435 = 3.6% 1- 50,000 2355 = 4.7% 1-100,000 14932 = 15% 1-200,000 86318 = 43% In practical terms, the data covers almost all asteroids up to 50,000 ******** 4.2024.7.15 ******** * Light curve reporter. Added a menu item to save an image of Light Curve Reporter form. At this, and the other two locations in the program where a form image is saved [AOTA, and the asteroid observations event plot] fixed a problem of incorrect image location/size when in the Windows property settings, the monitors are set to display an enlarged image. [This is typically only used with high resolution monitors.] * Use of J coordinates. Added a check for invalid coordinates with automatic correction of some defects, and prevented the insertion of non-numeric characters in the fields for setting the number. Reformatted various listings to allow for the extra 2 characters needed to display star names. ******** 4.2024.7.12 ******** * Gaia data. Automatic display of non-single star info when event opened in the observations editor. * For identification of Gaia stars by coordinates. Made a global change to use the format Jhhmmss.ss-ddmmss.s The J is the IAU standard for coordinates for the year 2000. The precision has been increased because of a small number of instances in the Occult Gaia catalog where two stars had the same identifier. ******** 4.2024.6.30 ******** * Gaia catalogue, data for 'Non-Single-stars' in DR3 Created a file of all such stars, containing the information useful for occultation predictions and reductions. Enabled access from various locations. * Binary asteroids - Gaia_Moon selection of asteroids. For the 'Taxonomy' filter on the Search form, added a new class of 'Binary'. Updated the file for managing Taxonomy filtering to include the asteroids in the Gaia_Moons project, plus those asteroid definitely discovered by occultation to have a satellite. NOTE. the additional entries will not take effect until the file of asteroid elements is updated. * Light Curve reporter, & AOTA. Issue with .csv files where there is evidence of dropped frames. In some cases it can be difficult to automatically correct the problem. For such cases, added an option to not do the automatic correction. This is intended to be used as a follow-up to reading a file where a large number of 'missing' frames are erroneously added. ******** 4.2024.6.17 ******** * Light Curve reporter, & AOTA. Drift-scan observations. [These are observations made using a single exposure on a CCD camera on a stationary telescope - with the star images drifting across the field. The technique requires Maxim-DL to measure the CCD, and John Broughton's Scanalyzer software. Added functionality in the Occult Light Curve Reporter to read the ..._Export.csv file generated by Scanalyzer to create a light curve file. The file can also be read (if needed) by AOTA. * Observations editor, display of shape models. Changed the way the shape model plot is initialized so that the reduced uncertainty bars are displayed by default - to facility the setting of the chords to measure maximum and minimum asteroid diameters. ******** 4.2024.6.15 ******** * Light curve viewer. Added selection of asteroid by keying the number. * Light curve viewer - editing light curves. Added capability to truncate light curves, and to set individual points in a light curve as invalid. Added capabilities to detect and remove duplicated light curves. * AOTA, and reporting a light curve. Reduced the minimum number of frames used to create a running average of a comparison star, to include 1 and 3 frames. ******** 4.2024.6.9 ******** * AOTA, and Report A Light Curve. Found & fixed a bug when assessing the reliability of the time scale. - fixed a bug for assessing the 2B test, which could occur when the light curve needed to be binned at the start of the analysis - For the display of the data under the 2B test for short duration light curves, provided the option to include/exclude individual comparison stars in the evaluation, so that the effect of comparison stars could be viewed. * Light Curve Viewer. Added capability to view light curves of a specified asteroid, by simply keying the number (rather than finding it in the long drop-down list) * Asteroid astrometry. Revised the uncertainty values associated with fit codes b, c1 and c2. * Asteroid searches, limiting the search to Taxonomy The selection of asteroids by Taxonomy is only functional for searches that do not access the Horizons system. A historical arrangement that will require a major effort to get around. Search form made clearer to emphasis this issue. The solution to this limitation is to make a 'standard' search not using Horizons, then from the List & Display form,use the menu item 'Create 'UserAsteroid.csv' file from JPL-Horizons, for all listed asteroids', and conduct a search using the 'use USER elements' option under group 4 of the Search form. ******** 4.2024.5.27 ******** * Asteroid search, List & Display. Fixed a bug when the List & Display for was loaded, that arose when the user did not have any regions set for the Path crossing... filter. Shape models. Improved the code for creating a new shape model file....... ******** 4.2024.5.26 ******** * Asteroid Search, List & Display: - Improved the manner of selecting regions for filtering the list of events. - Added functionality to display the filtered list whenever any of the search parameters are changed. - When the list is filtered on the basis of the site location, added the altitude of the Moon (next to the altitude of the Sun). * Asteroid Search: - improved the form layout, including bringing all ‘filter’ options into a new group - Improved the test for checking whether a UBSC star position is available for a Gaia star that does not have proper motion values. - made changes to handle Near Earth asteroids when they are near to the Earth. This is particularly relevant for (99942) Apophis in the days near 2029 Apr 13. * MPC astrometry report. Added capability to generate reports having extra output details. Added capability to create a report covering observations by an observer, including limiting that report to events where there were no other observers. * Asteroid Observations, Editor. Added display of the RUWE value above the list of observers. Display of Light curves for the event. Included an indication of where skipped frames exist. * Lunar predictions. Multiple objects for Multiple sites. Provided a finer selection of limiting magnitudes. ******** 4.2024.5.13 ******** * Light curve Viewer. Reworked the interface to make it easier to use. Added a button on the Ephemerides tab to enable access - it is now available on the Asteroid Observations, Lunar Observations, and Ephemeris tabs. * Asteroid Predictions. Search form. Revised the layout for Filters applied at the Search stage, plus added a new search filter based on telescope aperture, and whether the camera is a fixed exposure (i.e. basic video camera) or has variable exposures (CCD cameras, integrating video cameras). ******** 4.2024.5.5 ******** * Asteroid Observations, reduction, uncertainties. Incorporated the motion of the observer caused by the Earth's rotation during the uncertainty period for each D/R event. [The effect is almost always very small.] Updated code for PDS archiving to include the new item. Updated the asteroid~observations file to include the new data element. Updated the version number for the Asteroid~Observations file to 2.10 * Asteroid Observations, Astrometry. Included the uncertainty in the star's position in the solution (rather than expecting it to be treated separately) * Asteroid Observations, MPC report. Incorporated the uncertainty in the star position into the uncertainty in the position of the asteroid. This includes the uncertainty associated with a double star discovery with multiple solutions. * Asteroid search. Check box for using Horizons Ephemeris to get maximum accuracy. Status of check box maintained between session. * Asteroid Predictions & Observations. Display of asteroid diameter when calculated from the Absolute magnitude. Included a specific option for Trojan asteroids, which generally have a very low albedo. * Asteroid observations, plot of the event. Added Grid options for 500m, 200m, and 100m * Lunar occultation predictions. Event time for the terminator of a planet (relevant for Mercury, Venus & Mars). Fixed a bug where the time was, under certain circumstances, incorrect ******** 4.2024.4.17 ******** * Asteroid Observations editor. Selection of light curves to display. To cover the situation where there are two or more events on the same day by the same asteroid, light curves are only displayed if they are within 4 hours of the nominal mid-time of an event. * Asteroid Observations editor. Added an extra Quality of fit category 'Only one star of a double. No astrometry' to cover situations when the magnitude drop is much less than expected, and can only be explained by it being an occultation of one component of a double star. No astrometry will be reported, as the location of the photocenter of the double star (which would equate to the Gaia star position) is unknown. * Asteroid prediction, slow events. Expanded the treatment of long events to cover events lasting 80 hours or more. * Asteroid predictions, Occultation elements. Increased the precision of the Besselian elements to 7 decimal places to provide full accuracy for events extending over a day or more. * Asteroid observations, statistics. Added a function to list all events where the shadow takes more than 90 minutes to travel one earth diameter, and all events where it takes less than 5 minutes. * Asteroid predictions. A minor adjustment to computing path coordinates when the path passes near to a pole. * Light curves. Added functionality in the Administrative options for the Light Curve Viewer, to easily identify and remove submitted light curves which are duplicates of light curves in the main file ******** 4.2024.4.9 ******** * AOTA, and Light Curve Reporter. Included a check of any light curve when reading from a .CSV file, to check for skipped frames, and automatically added blank 'error' frames at those locations - to provide a uniformly spaced set of light curve data points. * Shape models. Reviewed and improved several aspects of the graphic of the model, including an option to plot the model darker so that it would be more easily visible when it is overlaid a map (or other document) in transparent form. * Observations Editor, and Shape Models. Added a tool to identify an asteroid from a DAMIT model number. * Double star discoveries. Enabled the copying of individual lines in the display * Asteroid Astrometry - ADES format. Provided an output with extra fields, for research purposes ******** 4.2024.4.4 ******** * Asteroid editor. Added a capability to generate a prediction for the event currently displayed in the editor. This is to facilitate the generation of a post-diction, as well as to obtain a star number as used in the Occult Gaia catalogues * AOTA - integrity check. Made changes to the test to handle the potential issue of jitter in the recorded times of exposures. * Asteroid observations, graphic plots of multiple events. Revised the text for the html file generated for PDS archiving. * Asteroid observations. Fixed a very rare occurrence where the record for an observation did not include a value for the uncertainty in the assumed diameter. This bug resulted in an invalid Correlation value in the MPC astrometry report * Light curve viewer. Ceased the display of certain light curves when the viewer is opened. * Asteroid predictions. Fixed a bug for when used by OWC ******** 4.2024.2.23 ******** * AOTA and the LightCurve reporter: Minor changes to make certain aspects more apparent. Modified the checking of time reliability to allow for small variations in the exposure durations Fixed an issue with the event duration, when the light curve crosses the 0hrs border. * Asteroid observations editor. Improved the settings for the dimensions of a satellite Improved messaging and file handling when adding events to the main file ******** 4.2024.2.10 ******** * Light Curve Viewer - administrator access. It had the wrong access requirement. Fixed. * Asteroid predictions, path generation. Fixed a rare issue that caused a crash when generating the path * Star chart Help file. Added text to explain how to display the details of any star on the plot ******** 4.2024.2.2 ******** * Light curve viewer/editor. Extensive reworking to more easily display light curves for an event, including displaying the event in AOTA * Asteroid observations, statistics. Added a function to list all events where the mag drop is less than a specified value (up to 0.5) * Minor changes in the code for generating the files for archiving at NASA's PDS system, and the MPC ADES report * Asteroid predictions, Path coordinates. Fixed a bug which could cause a path reversal when changing from iteration by Latitude to an iteration by longitude. * Asteroid predictions. Added a flag for when the source of the star's position is the HIP2 catalogue, with there being a possibility of it being a low-precision duplicate of another star in the Gaia catalogue. ******** 4.2024.1.18 beta ******** * Asteroid Observations, Double Star solutions. Fixed a bug with the Stnd Devs for double star PA & Sepn, where the computed values were 'nonsense'. * Asteroid observations, and elsewhere, including the Help files. Wherever appropriate, changed telescope identification of 'eVscope' to the commercially neutral 'Electronic' telescope. * Further improvements in the short duration events test ******** 4.2024.1.9 beta ******** * AOTA & Light curve reporter. Numerous changes to (hopefully) enhance the clarity of the plots, including: * reformatting the region for setting the image scale (AOTA) * in AOTA, ensuring points with a significant negative value are included in the plot. * displaying the checks for comparison stars and background only when data is available. * by default, the 'Scale comparisons' check is set, so that comparison light curves are more readily apparent when comparison stars are checked. * Option added 'File... Plot using large points' to choose whether to plot the light curve points as small or large. This setting is retained between sessions. * reducing the data displayed on the plot to those particularly relevant to that tab * Analyze the light curve (AOTA). Increased the allowable range of chi^2 from 30 to 40. * Assessment of short duration events. Further enhancements. * Light curve viewer. Enabled the transfer of the data in a light curve file to AOTA, where functions like plotting running averages, and finding event times, can occur. Function is accessed from the main Light Curve Viewer form, and from the Light Curve Editor. * Asteroid predictions, generation of kmz file. fixed an error that arose when no part of the path crossed the Earth. ******** 4.2023.12.28 beta for testing ******** * AOTA & Light Curve Reporter, Assessment of short duration events. Enhanced the functionality. * Observations editor. When replacing 'invalid' characters in a field, display both the old and new strings for comparison. ******** 4.2023.12.20 beta for testing ******** * Observation editor, selection of events by year range Where there were plural entries for a year, I have made an attempt to associate the lines for a year by the font color. * Light curve Viewer. Made the form re-sizable * Observations editor, new Quality of Fit setting. Specified the setting as 'Short duration event. No astrometry', and added an alert if an event was being added to the Main file with this setting. * AOTA. New functionality added relating to very short 'possible' events (1 or 2 frame events) to allow an assessment of whether there was a reasonable possibility that the possible event was actually an occultation (in which case the event would be included with the new Quality of Fit setting). This functionality requires (inter alia) comparison with the light curves of comparison stars * Observations editor, Display of light curves. For global coordinator processing, enabled an automatic display of any submitted but not processed light curves for the asteroid. * Asteroid predictions, light curve simulator. Added a the capability to make the form transparent so that the light curve can be overlaid on an observed light curve, to enable variation of the parameters to get a best-fit to the observed light curve. * AOTA - reading .csv files from PyOTE. Identified and fixed an index error for the 3rd comparison star. ******** 4.2023.11.30 ******** * Asteroid observations. Added a new Event Quality code, to directly relate to single-point observations. Details of when to use this setting yet to be finalised. * Asteroid observations, Statistics. Added a display of the number of events by month, for the various regions. This is to assist planning of likely future workloads for the regional coordinators. ******** 4.2023.11.17 ******** * Star chart. Added capability to display star identifier and magnitudes via a point and click. * Asteroid observations, uncertainty in star position. fixed an issue where the star was too faint for the Occult Gaia subset catalog, such that a Gaia position was retrieved via VizieR, and the star had no proper motions in Gaia. In these cases (only one identified) the UCAC4 proper motion and uncertainty values were added to the Gaia data. * Asteroid observations. A number of code changes made to ensure the output files were correctly formatted. * Mutual asteroid occultation predictions. A small change in code required to address a small change in the format of the source data. * Asteroidal observations. Code changes to meet requirements of MPC astrometry, and PDS archiving * Asteroid Observations editor. Incorporated functionality to manually edit the MPC publication details for reported astrometry ******** 4.2023.10.30 ******** * Asteroid predictions, reading a file of occultation elements. Avoided an error if the initial group tag was not present. * Lunar occultations - observation editor, reporting a light curve file. Fixed a problem with certain observer data fields no being populated. [Problem was an undetected consequential error when the capability to report asteroidal light curves with fields prepopulated from the Asteroid Obsrvations editor] * Ephemerides tab, JD<>Date (etc), conversion of solar time to UT. Corrected a 1-day error in the converted date/time. ******** 4.2023.10.24 ******** * Asteroid predictions, Light curve simulator. Made some enhancements & corrections, to allow for adding lines for magnitude, setting distances as topographic, allowing for vertical (as well as horizontal) form resizing, providing extra scale points when the plot size is increased, variation of horizontal scales when the star or asteroid sizes change, indicating on the Across-path plot the Left and Right side of the path (direction being that of motion along the path) to correctly give the along-path light curve when the asteroid is not spherical. ******** 4.2023.10.14 ******** * Asteroid predictions, model the light curve for an event (added with v4.2023.6.5). Changed the methodology from a numerical solution based on two circles, to a numerical approach where the objects are represented by arrays (with counting of overlapping array points and values) to cater for elliptic shapes for asteroids, and limb darkening of the star. NOTE. This function is available on the Occult world plot of an event, as well as from the Asteroid Predictions tab. * Asteroid occultations, Light curve simulator on Asteroidal Observations tab. Removed. This was an early effort to generate light curves, and was not useful. * Listing of path coordinates. Fixed an issue where iteration by latitude failed to swap to iteration by longitude (which was appearing as an incomplete path. Plus marking that change in the list of path coordinates * GoogleEarth plot of occultation path. Improved the text in the center line information box * Star charts. List of catalogues to select. Disabled those that weren't available on the users computer * Asteroid predictions, List of prepoint stars. Version 4.2023.9.23 made a change to the catalog to be used to generate the list, for the reasons stated below. Unfortunately the code used to select an appropriate catalog was deficient, and for some users (but not all) no catalog was found, even though the catalog existed. Fixed. ******** 4.2023.9.26 ******** * Reporting Light Curves. Improved the process for notifying the user that light curves are due for uploading. In the Light Curve generating form you have an option to Save the light curve, and email it later. This option allows you to create light curve files for multiple events, and email them later. When you do this, you will be reminded after 1 month that you have light curve files to be emailed. The improvement is to ensure the reminder process is based on the oldest light curve file in the subdirectory that Occult writes the light curve files. * Light curves - plot. Improved clarity at the top and bottom of the plot. ******** 4.2023.9.24 ******** * Fixed a bug relating to the notice of light curves need updating ******** 4.2023.9.23 ******** * Light curve reporter, form for specifying the event details. Changed the default Catalogue for the star number to be UCAC4 - as that is the most commonly used catalogue selection. * Light curve reporter. Added a Help button to provide advice on emailing light curves, for gmail users. * Asteroid observations, plot form, Double star solution form. Extensive revision of this form to provide greater guidance of data entry. Includes extra data input fields for setting the brightness ratio of the components, plus a display of the resulting component magnitudes. Also included a 'solve' button to compute the best fit for the companion star without affecting the fit for the main star. * Asteroid observations, plot of sites in GoogleEarth. Included the chord number as part of the site identifier. * Asteroid observations, plot form. Added the functionality to right-click on the list of observers in the legend to highlight the chord of that observer on the plot. Functionality is only available when the chords are plotted in colour. * Asteroid observations, plot form. When there are many chords and the display is of the star when visible, the plot can take a long time to refresh. Added a 'Wait Cursor' display to indicate when the plot is refreshing. * Asteroid observations, plot form, display of the panels for double star, and satellite, solutions. Ensured the panel was always present on the form when the form is resized - so that when necessary it can be easily dragged in for use without having to enlarge the form to find the panel. * Lunar occultation predictions, Multisite predictions for a single star. Added a progress bar to indicate progress through the file of sites. * Asteroid predictions, Path Coordinates. Added a display of the number of GoogleEarth .kmz files, and their total size, that are stored on disk. This is so users can review and delete unwanted files. These files are created when the path is plotted in GoogleEarth from the Path Coordinates form. The file names are constructed from the asteroid, star, and event date. * Star charts. To assist with visibility of the form when transparency is used, adjusted the form colors. * AOTA - fixed a problem that occurs when the background light level across the entire recording, is zero. [Yes, it can happen! Depends upon the setting for the camera for an event.] * Asteroid predictions, generation of a list of Prepoint Stars. For historical reasons, the capability was developed using the Tycho-Gaia catalog of Gaia DR1, and has never been updated. Have revised the code to use the Gaia catalogues available on the user's PC. Testing indicates about a 5% increase in the number of prepoint stars that are listed. ******** 4.2023.8.24 ******** * Asteroid predictions, List & Display. Ensured the event date/time were correctly displayed when the list was filtered by 'Visible from...', or by using a region filter. [Issue arose when the event duration crossed the 0hrs UT boundary.] Similarly, the times given in the multilocation predictions were adjusted to correctly identify the time when that occurred in the day preceding or following the nominal day of the event. ******** 4.2023.8.21 beta ******** * Asteroid Observations editor. Added code to change any instances of the country code UK, to GB. Added code to ensure the number of consecutive spaces within an observer's name was 1. ******** 4.2023.8.18 ******** * Asteroid predictions. Calculation and plot of the path coordinates. Hiroyuki Watanabe came across an instance where the path was not properly plotted or computed. Tracked the issue down to the initial value of an iteration test variable being set to a value which in certain rare circumstances, resulted in the path calculation erroneously being treated as completed in certain rare circumstances. * Asteroid predictions, times for many sites. The change made in 4.2023.7.30 inadvertently excluded predictions involving the main body of a major planet. ******** 4.2023.8.15 ******** * Asteroid predictions. Further corrections to the plot of the 1-sigma line. The previous corrections had solved the underlying problem. However it inadvertently resulted in a field definition change, making it incompatible with OW/OWC and previously generated predictions. This has now been fixed, and hopefully the entire issue is now resolved. * Asteroid observations editor. When the mag. drop is 1000km. That is: Io, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto, Tethys, Dione Rhea, Titan, Iapetus Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, Oberon, Triton and Charon * Files of coordinates of the planets used for numerically integrating an orbit. Provided the ability to update these files using the version of the DE file that the user has downloaded. The effect of this update is extremely minimal unless an asteroid goes particularly close to a planet. Nevertheless, updating to the latest version is desirable. When you first open the Search form, a check will be done of whether you should do an update. The update only takes a few seconds. ******** 4.2022.6.11 ******** * Asteroid observations, list of astrometric positions. Fixed problem of identifying events involving periodic comets (associated with the 'P' that could be part of the comet's identifier) * Added functionality to generate mutual asteroid occultations and transits. The functionality depends on the list of asteroid appulses at https://minorplanet.info/php/asteroidappulses.php ******** 4.2022.5.27 ******** * Asteroids. Added core functionality for computing mutual asteroidal occultations * Star chart. Increased level of transparency. Retained size of form, flip status, rotation angle, B&W status, plot size, and showing coordinates - between sessions. * Asteroid predictions - Planets. Fixed an issue associated with predictions for Pluto. An old setting for an ephemeris offset was potentially still being applied. Changed code to remove the automatic correction. ******** 4.2022.5.12 ******** * fixed an issue with the AOTA form for setting integration parameters using mouse clicks, which arose incidentally on the revision in 4.2022.5.8 * Also noted that the Help topics for tabs 5 and 6 of AOTA were not properly linked to those forms. Problem introduced at an earlier unknown date. Problem fixed. ******** 4.2022.5.11 ******** * Form for reporting a light curve. In 4.2022.4.11 I added code to check for completion of the data required for asteroidal occultation light curves. Unfortunately the extra code was also being applied to lunar occultation light curves, preventing the file for those events from being properly created. Fixed. [Thanks to Faustino G for advising me of the problem] ******** 4.2022.5.8 ******** * Ephemerides, Altitude of an object. Slightly improved accuracy * Star chart. Moved the Opacity control to the left of the form, so that the form can be shrunk to overlay a video image on a screen while still allowing the opacity to be changed. * Lunar occultations. Suppressed all messages about Kepler2 stars. ******** 4.2022.5.2 ******** * Asteroid Observations. Open or paste a file. Fixed an issue arising from the double star changes in 2022.4.28 - due to a variable not being initialised to the required value. * AOTA. Form for setting integration, binning (and Normalisation) Changed the plot for so that the light curve is scrolled, with the user being able to set the horizontal scale of the plot (in a control referred to as 'point length', which gives the plot length for the frames of the light curve. The larger the plot length, the more spread-out the light curve. ******** 4.2022.4.30 ******** * Asteroid Observations, pasting Euraster data. Fixed an issue arising from the double star changes in 2022.4.28 ******** 4.2022.4.29 ******** * Asteroid predictions - conversion of AstDys2 orbital elements file. Added code to handle duplicate entries in AstDys2, which is currently the case for (433) Eros ******** 4.2022.4.28 ******** * Asteroid observations. Revised the code for handling double stars, to (i) apply a correction to the star position so that it is referred to the star that has been used for the solution, and (ii) when there are more than one solutions for the double star, compute a mean and standard deviation of the offset, with this being added to the star's position uncertainty. The correction is based on the double star solution of Separation and PA, with a proportionality based on the relative brightness of the two components, which can be estimated from the light curve relative step sizes. Consequential changes to all astrometric solution displays to incorporate the offset and its uncertainty. * Asteroid observations. Corrected the omission of setting the check for solving X and Y from the data in the file. * Asteroid observations. Added an extra category 'Not constrained' for fits to shape models. * Occultation light curves. Added display of time, and height for the location of the cursor. * Magnitude calculator. Changed the order of the solution types. * Asteroid Observations Editor. Added an option under List.... to display the WDS and Interferometer double star details and variable star details. ******** 4.2022.4.21 ******** * Occultation light curves. Completed the revision of the functionality to support and manage occultation light curves. This includes an easy means to add new light curves, edit existing light curves, and detect a range of possible errors in light curve data. * Magnitude calculator. Comprehensive revision of determining magnitudes from light curves. Computations assume linear camera response. Two situations are provided for: 1. Asteroid occultation light curve with intermediate step. Inputs are the star catalogue magnitude and asteroid magnitude, together with the 3 light curve values at one or both the D and R. Output is the base light level for the D and R curves, and the component star magnitudes 2. Input is magnitudes and light level values for two known stars, together with the light level value of a target object. Output is the base light level, and the magnitude of the target object. The base light level is the computed 'zero-level' of light intensity, which will typically differ from the zero level on a measured light curve. ******** 4.2022.4.11 ******** * Asteroid predictions, Asteroid Observations, Display of star positions. Fixed an issue arising from the Occult Gaia catalogue having a small number of duplicated Tycho2 stars - one position from EDR3, the other from TGas. Issue was limited to Tycho2 stars that were within 3" of the edge of 0.5° wide declination bands in the Occult Gaia catalogue. [Occurrence of the situation was quite rare.] * Asteroid Observations Editor. Retained the form positions between sessions for the displays of the current solution for Double Stars shape models, and Nearby Stars. Ensured these displays were closed when the observation editor was closed. * Asteroid observations, display of shape models. Fixed a long-standing problem that if having displayed an event, and move to another event of the same asteroid, the shape model was not correctly oriented, but was if the event was selected again, or the model downloaded again. * AOTA. Added a display of the overall Signal-to-Noise ratio on the final output tab (tab 6). * Asteroid observations, MPC reporting. Added functionality to download the ADES format for reporting astrometry to the MPC, plus a list of MPC approved field values. * Occultation light curves. Revision of the code for displaying light curves - to make maintenance easier, and to allow improved functionality. When an event in the Asteroid Observations Editor has one or more light curves submitted, they are automatically displayed. * Occultation light curves - reporting. Added error message report if the observer has failed to include the date, asteroid, site location, or star. * Star chart functionality. Revised the list of catalogues that can be accessed, to remove UCAC2, UCAC3, URAT1, Tycho2 and TychoGaia. * AOTA. Added option to plot comparison stars at true relative light level relative to the target, or to scale their light level to be similar to the target star (which was the previous basis of their plots). * Shape Models. On the Ephemerides tab, Shape Models box, Demonstration added text that gives the position angle and elevation of the north polar axis above the sky plane. * Asteroid observations, Reporting astrometry to the Minor Planet Center. Added links on the report generating form to download the ADES format specification, and the acceptable field values for a number of fields. Updated MPC report for new observatory code. ******** 4.2022.3.16 ******** * Asteroid predictions. Fixed issue of UBAD being used, not being displayed. ******** 4.2022.3.15 General release ******** * Asteroid predictions. When an event is determined to be an annular occultation, the percent coverage of the star is given in the displayed alert on the plot. Also, and most important - the predicted magnitude drop has now adjusted for the effect of the annularity. [Two examples. 2022 Mar 14 - Occn by (45659) 2000 EL84. 2023 Dec 12 - Occn by 319 Leona of Betelgeuse] * Asteroid predictions, UBAD stars. When the star position used for a prediction is from UBAD, made this clear on the prediction plot. Also, followed advice from UBAD authors on how to best handle UBAD stars where the proper motion determination did not include the original Hip2 position. * Asteroid Observations Editor. Retrieval of star coordinates. Identified and fixed a long-standing problem with retrieving Gaia_EDR3 positions for Tycho2 stars. Cause - a change in the data storage format between DR2 and EDR3 with respect to the Tycho2 Supplementary field (the '-1' at the end of the number), with the code not properly taking the format change into account. * Asteroid predictions. Enabled the ability to make an external call to Occult to generate a file of Occultation elements. * Lunar occultation reductions. Enabled the use of JPL Horizons for planetary moons and asteroids. * Solar eclipses. When generating the lunar profile for local contact times, the longitude libration is displayed on the progress bar form ******** 4.2022.3.10 General release ******** * Asteroid predictions. Adjusted the header line on the world plot, to additionally display the time corresponding to 1 km, and 1 mas, in the motion of the asteroid. * Asteroid Observations Editor. When opening observations from a file, pasting observations, pasting additional observer lines, or pasting from Euraster or Japan (old format), the observers may be sorted in order of path distance. An additional menu item in File... and Paste... sets whether the observers will be sorted, with the value retained between sessions. * Star catalogues - enabled the UBAD star catalogue, to provide better star positions than those in Hip2, for some of the bright stars not in Gaia. * Asteroid observations. Incorporated a new Observatory Code allocated by the Minor Planet Center, for occultation astrometry reported on the basis of the (x,y,z) coordinates of the shadow axis on the fundamental plane. * Asteroid Observations. Added an option to list all events where the main body of the asteroid was not observed. * Asteroid predictions, display of star chart on world plot. Improved the positioning of the star chart so that it was fixed relatively to the edges of the map, and to avoid overlapping any information messages given at the top left of the plot. * Asteroid Observation editor, plot of event. Corrected the display of the motion of the asteroid, to give the motion of the asteroid relative to the observer on the rotating Earth, rather the motion on the fundamental plane with no allowance for the motion of the Observer on the rotating Earth. * Asteroid Observation editor, pasting from Euraster. Ensured stars identified using 'G' coords were properly handled, and 'Flag for future review' reset; * Asteroid predictions. Fixed a bug where estimated star diameters were being displayed even when a measured diameter was available. ******** 4.2022.2.15 General release ******** * Star map. Expanded options to (i) enable image flipping both up/down and left/right, plus image rotation. Also a control to make the form transparent, so that the map can be overlaid an image, scaled and rotated to match - so that stars on the star chart and the image can be positively matched. Precision of the cursor coordinates on the map increased to 0.1s/1" for the small field maps. These coordinates can then be used to identify the star in star catalogues, and extraction (for example) the star's magnitudes. ******** 4.2022.2.2 General release ******** * Asteroid Observations. Plot of event. There are numerous plot options available on the form. For certain events one might want to change your usual options. But then you have to reset options to get back to your usual set of options. Added the capability to set your favorite selection of options as a default setting - so that your favorite settings get returned with a single click.0 * Asteroid predictions, use of Horizons. Changed the access to the Horizons system such that it occurs at the start of a search, rather than when an asteroid is selected for a search. This ensures the downloaded elements are relevant to the search being undertaken if the search dates are changed. * Asteroid predictions, star charts. Fixed an ongoing issue of incomplete coverage when the field was small. * Asteroid predictions - conversion of LuckyStar predictions. Fixed an issue where the conversion failed with Pluto. * Lunar Observations. Re-enabled the plotting of past observations against a plot of the lunar limb showing 'current events'. * Lunar observations, grazes. Viewing and plotting the results from past grazes. Added an option, when listing events from a graze into the observations editor, of whether or not spurious or invalid observations are included. ******** 4.2022.1.20 General release, 20 Jan 2022 ******** * AOTA - Hints and Tips Help item. Added some very useful guidance in how to best use the tool, from Eric Frappa. * Lunar reductions. Consolidated various reduction routines. Increased the numerical precision of the limb height, from 0.01" to 0.001" * deltaT handling. Updated the basis for deltaT values. Removed the need for the deltaT file. Enabled generation of list of differences derived from lunar occultation reductions, from that used. * Lunar reductions, including the file of observations for archiving at VizieR. Ensured that wherever possible the star position was retrieved from EDR3 or Hipparcos2, and that source catalogue is listed in the reductions. * Lunar reductions. Removed support for using Kaguya, and for plotting past graze observations using either l,b or P,D coordinates. * Asteroid observations editor. Form for displaying nearby stars. Made the color variation more pronounced, to better draw their attention. * Asteroid predictions. Setting User Elements using Horizons. Allowed for the hour and minute to be specified - to ensure accurate predictions for Near-Earth flybys of asteroids. * Asteroid predictions. Increased precision of the UT of closest approach to the center of the Earth - in hours - from 4 to 6 decimal places * Asteroid Observations Editor. Provide a menu option to copy the current event in XML format, to the clipboard. * Asteroid Observations Editor, Double star parameters. Increased the maximum allowable separation to 40" (to allow for a historic double star event involving Jupiter). * Asteroid predictions. Setting parameters for the search. Ensured that when the check box for the minimum diameter is not checked, the minimum diameter is set at zero. * Display of Shape models. Located both the model identification and plane-view to top right of the plot ******** 4.2022.1.1 General release, 1 Jan 2022 ******** * Version numbers. Changed the version number scheme to be: Occult v4.yyyy.mm.dd with yyyy.mm.dd being the year, month and day of release. * Asteroid predictions, MJD of date of prediction. Fixed a bug whereby no fraction of a day was included in the element of the Occelmnt file. * Light curve reporter. Added text to the form for entering observer names to indicate that plural names are to be separated with a / * Check for ISAM availability. Limited the internet response time when checking for ISAM availability, to 1 sec. * Asteroid observations editor. Fixed a bug that prevented the pasteing of new observers, if the source file used LF rather than LF CR as the end of a line marker. * Asteroid observations editor. Improved the code for retrieving Gaia EDR3 positions when the star is not in the usual Occult Gaia subsets. Also fixed a bug if the Gaia position as returned from Vizier was one where its proper motion is not known. * Asteroid Observations. Added functionality to manage observations submitted by Unistellar from the eVscope network. * Asteroid predictions - Convert Lucky-Star predictions. Updated the download address. * Access to Gaia position via UCAC4 numbers. A file critical to accessing Gaia catalogues using a UCAC4 number was missing for new users of Occult. Ensured that file was downloaded if it is not on the users computer. File is U4_Gaia14.inx, in the Occult 4\Resource files\Gaia folder. * Asteroid predictions, World plot. Ensured the asteroid diameter listed in the header was the asteroid's actual diameter (km & mas), and not that diameter augmented by the star's diameter (a value used for computing the path limits) * Asteroid predictions. Changed the output of magnitude drop, to also include the percentage drop in light level. * Star charts. Fixed a bug where stars were sometimes not plotted when the star chart field is small. * Display of star catalogue information. Made all displays consistent in giving the magnitudes in the order Mv, Mb, Mr * Ephemeris tab, conversion of dates and angles. For when investigating historical observations, added a function to convert a reported Solar time to UT. * Lunar occultation reductions. Ensured consistency in reductions with the application of PE when it was not known, or was unspecified. ******** 4.12.16.0 General release, 29 Nov 2021 ******** * Asteroid observations, list of sites for an observer. Added an additional count of events where the observer had at least one Hit event. * Conversion of Astorb. Fixed a glitch with the conversion, caused by a format issue in the latest version of the file. ******** 4.12.15.7 Beta release, 20 Nov 2021 ******** * Asteroid predictions, LuckyStar and RIO predictions. Ensured the orbit date was associated with the orbit source, if that date is available in the LuckyStar or RIO file. Also ensured the taxonomic class (eg Centaur, TNO, etc) was included. ******** 4.12.15.7 General release, 13 Nov 2021 ******** * Asteroid Observations editor. When Horizons does not have a diameter for an asteroid, made sure the diameter held in the Occult file of diameters as always used. * Asteroid Observations editor. Pasting a prediction line. Fixed a bug if the event extended over the 24h boundary. * Ephemerides of asteroidal satellites. Fixed an erroneous display of position uncertainties from Miriade. * Asteroid Observations Editor. Pasting XML-formated observations. The list of observers will be sorted by path distance, and renumbered, following the pasting of new observers. * AOTA. Made changes to the plot scale values and increments for small plot scales. * Asteroid Observations editor, display of Nearby Stars. Arranged for the background to vary when there is a nearby star of possible concern - making it more noticeable. * Asteroid Observations Editor, pasting from Euraster. Ensured the paste occurred correctly when the object was a planet or a planetary moon. ******** 4.12.15.6 General release, 6 Nov 2021 ******** * Asteroid Observations Editor. Improved pasting in 4.12.5.5 to remove characters after '@' when the orbit details are retrieved from OWC. * Asteroid predictions. A problem with the Occult-generated ephemeris of Styx (Pluto V) was identified and fixed. Additionally, an issue has surfaced concerning the uncertainties associated with satellite ephemerides from Horizons. Such uncertainties are not provided in the Horizons ephemerides. They used to have a table that give indicative uncertainties, that I have used. However that table is no longer available at Horizons. In the short term I have munted that Table on the Occult server, so that it is automatically downloaded when generating a satellite prediction (if you don't already have it). ******** 4.12.15.5 General release, 6 Nov 2021 ******** * Asteroid Observations Editor. Improved pasting in 4.12.5.4 to cover LuckStar and RIO predictions. Also to create the required line for EURASTER support. * Asteroid predictions. Included date of orbit determination. ******** 4.12.15.4 Beta release, 3 Nov 2021 ******** * Asteroid Observations Editor. When copying the predicted path from an Occult prediction, the orbit source is included in the free text field for thew prediction line * Asteroid predictions. Included source of orbit in the Header. ******** 4.12.15.3 General release, 1 Nov 2021 ******** * Asteroid predictions, Star chart on World Map. fixed an issue where the asteroid path through the stars was incorrectly plotted if the plot area was less than 2 deg * Asteroid Observations, output of observer coords on the fundamental plane, and plot of observations. Where an observer has not reported event time uncertainties: - the astrometry assumes uncertainty values based on the method of observations, and time source. - the plot of the results was based on a very simple set of assumptions - the output of coords provided no positions for the ends of the uncertainty The plot of observations, and the output of coords, now use the same set of assumptions as those used for astrometry. * Asteroid Observations, shape model fitting. An issue was identified where in the circumstances where there were no DAMIT shape models, and there were more than one ISAM model, changing the scale of the plot of the shape model set the model parameters to those of the first ISAM model. Fixed. Only asteroids where this could possibly have been at issue were 145, 308, 362, and 654 ******** 4.12.15.2 Beta release, 26 Oct 2021 ******** * Effectively undid 4.12.15.1 changes, and added an alert for when AOTA is called directly from Tangra, with more than 6000 points to be plotted. * Improved plot of the motion of the asteroid on the star charts ******** 4.12.15.1 Beta release, 25 Oct 2021 ******** * Revisions to AOTA to avoid crashes when the light curve data is long, and the form size increased. For large light curves, the size of the form is limited. ******** 4.12.15.0 General release, 21 Oct 2021 ******** * Asteroid predictions, path coordinates. Added an option to select the height above Mean Sea Level for the calculation of the path coordinates. * Asteroid Predictions. Included on the search form an option to turn off the automatic selection of elements from Horizons. Used for when you don't want to use the Horizons elements (including if Horizons has a problem returning results.) * Asteroid Observations, generation of a shape model. Fixed an issue where, if a shape model was displayed, the shape model form closed, and a new shape model was generated, that model would be displayed with 'todays' date. * Asteroid observations. Updated the routine for generating the vector coordinates of observers at the time used for analysis of the event. * Asteroid predictions. Improved the functioning of the generation of star charts. ******** 4.12.14.4 Beta release, 5 Oct 2021 ******** * Asteroid Observations. Added display of Nearby Stars - as a 'List' option, as well as an automatic display when an event is opened. * Asteroid Observations. Detection of another entry by that asteroid on the event date. Rectified a problem where the test failed if the asteroid was marked as having a shape model. Added the identification of the star(s) to the message. * Asteroid predictions, world map, star chart on map. Added an option, under the Options menu item, to plot an 'enhanced' star chart on the map. The chart has a magnitude limit and sky coverage that depends on the magnitude of the star. The setting to plot the enhanced chart is retained between sessions. ******** 4.12.14.2 Beta release, 2 Oct 2021 ******** * Access to JPL Horizons. Updated the calls from the Horizons .cgi interface to the new .api interface * Ephemerides for planetary satellites retrieved from Horizons. Rectified an issue with the call, which could result in the path location being up to one minute late in the along-track direction. * Opening Occult from OW to display the event - prevented the check of whether ISAM models needed to be updated * Opening Shape Models for the first time with an asteroid that does not have a shape model - removed a validity check that arose merely because it hadn't been previously opened. * Asteroid predictions - generating orbital elements from Horizons for a list of events in List & Display. Excluded Planets, planetary moons, and asteroidal satellites from the JPL request. ******** 4.12.14.1 Beta release, 31 Sept 2021 ******** * Asteroid predictions. Ensured the Mag drop values were held in the occelemnt file, rather than being computed at run time - essential for revised mag drops from nearby stars. Changed the format speci for the NearBy star data in the Occelmnt file. Changed the format of the '540' fixed field file to include the RUWE value, the mag drops and the nearby star data. * Asteroid List&Display. Added occult version no. to the form label. NearbyStars are flagged with a †. If there is a consequential adjustment to the mag drop, it is flagged with ‡. ******** 4.12.14.0 Beta release, 30 Sept 2021 ******** * Asteroid predictions. Added info on any nearby stars. Where there are nearby stars within 4" of the target, the mag drop of the event has the effect of these stars included. Also the total number of stars within 15" of the target and brighter than the target star + 0.5 mag, and stars at least 2 mags brighter than the target, are displayed. * Lunar predictions, Multisite. Fixed a rare bug that arose if the moon was directly overhead. Also rectified the correction for light time across from the observer to the fundamental plane. * Asteroid Observations. Added capability to list all events involving ring observations. * AOTA - retrieval of catalogue identifiers for the star. Fixed an issue where an error report was made when reading the output from VizieR ******** 4.12.13.1 General release 13 September 2021 ******** * Asteroid predictions, downloading from Horizons from the List & Display listing. Fixed a problem with an invalid download for the first un-numbered asteroid in the list. * Updates. Provided for automatic saving of the Occult update file just downloaded. The file is held in the subdirectory Updates. The file name in the form of OccultUpdate v.vv.vv.v [n].zip, or OccultUpdateBeta v.vv.vv.v [n].zip where v.vv.vv.v is the version number. The number in [ ] is a sequential number if you have download the same update as a previous one. ******** 4.12.13.0 General release 11 September 2021 ******** * Asteroid Observations editor. Added a new telescope type entry - eVscope - with automatic completion of Aperture, Datum Observing Method,and time source * Asteroid predictions, User star file. Some years ago the user file type was changed from .dat to .csv. Unfortunately the code for testing whether the file was present was not changed at that time. Fixed. * Asteroid observations. Developed an error model for the major planets and satellites, where diameters and sphericity are known * Lunar occultation predictions. Planets and their moons. Fixed a problem where events weren't being found. * Asteroid predictions, star map on path plot. Fixed a problem where the code reported the absence of a catalogue file * Asteroid predictions, conversion of LuckyStar predictions. Changes to deal with format updates to the LuckyStar files. * Asteroid Predictions, Plot of path. Added an extra plot scale (x0.3), under the menu item Redraw... ******** 4.12.12.1 General release 23 August 2021 ******** * Asteroid Observations Editor. Fixed a bug where if the display of Stellar diameters and Fresnel diffraction was called, and the event was then saved, it would set the values for parallax and asteroid motion as those from a previously displayed event. * Asteroid Observations Editor. Added a text flag in the star position group, to indicate when there was no proper motion, whether the proper motion was derived using UCAC4, or whether the star position had come from Hipparcos. * Asteroid astrometry listings. Provided options to exclude results from listings if there was no Gaia or Hipparcos proper motion * Asteroid Observations Editor, importing events from Euraster. Added code to handle the Ghhmmss.s-ddmmss star identifier ******** 4.12.12.0 General release 18 August 2021 ******** * Generating a list of astrometric positions of asteroids. Fixed a bug that prevented anything from being displayed. * Automatic display of shape models. Fixed a bug that caused the model to be initially displayed for the wrong date when the asteroid was the same as the previous asteroid displayed in the editor. * Asteroid predictions - List & Display form. To enable the user to compare the results of a search using (for example) elements from one source, with the results using elements from a different source, the File... Open & Merge function has been expanded to two options - one with duplicate entries deleted, and the other with duplicates retained. ******** 4.12.11.0 General release 8 August 2021 ******** * Light curve processing. Added improved error messaging * Display of shape models. Fixed code so that repetitive display of models did not occur when an asteroid is selected. Also, in the Observations editor, when an event is opened, if there are any shape models for that asteroid, those models are automatically displayed. ******** 4.12.10.2 General release 25 July 2021 ******** * user settings - clarified the updating of download addresses * Asteroid predictions. Enabled use of Horizons for predictions of occultations by planetary satellites, as well as in the Observations editor. Enabled a 'crude' method for generating Horizons - based predictions for Comets [a method that requires considerable improvement!] * Retrieval of data from JPL Horizons. Ensured the Horizons query was consistent with a recent update of Horizons. * astrometric reports. Ensured reports for the major planets & satellites could be conveniently generated for reporting. * Asteroid Observations file. Added code to deal with HTML-inconsistent characters in the DAMIT & ISAM 'version' fields ******** 4.12.10.1 General release 17 July 2021 ******** * Asteroid observations editor. When opening an event, any double star solution or shape model fit data are displayed. * Updated the Downloads for the Asteroid Light Curve database where the server and file names had changed. ******** 4.12.10.0 General release 14 July 2021 ******** * Asteroid predictions. Updated program so that the predictions of occultations by planetary satellites are computed using an ephemeris downloaded from JPL Horizons. * Asteroid Observations Editor. Included an event option for occultations by asteroidal rings. ******** 4.12.9.5 General release 8 July 2021 ******** * Asteroid Prediction, Multipath plot. Corrected an oversight associated with using a csv file format for the file containing the coordinates of he multiple paths. * Asteroid observations, List of astrometric positions. Include an option to display the geocentric xyz coords of the shadow axis, with this being the default display. * Solar eclipses, Baily Beads. Added an option to save the plot of the lunar limb. ******** 4.12.9.3 beta release 3 July 2021 ******** * Asteroid diameters. Changed code to manually edit the file of diameters to allow uncertainties as a percentage of the diameter (10%), rather than a fixed 5km. * Asteroid observations editor. Added a new event code for events involving rings around asteroids. {and updated the relevant events in the observations file.} ******** 4.12.9.2 General release 1 July 2021 ******** * Asteroid elements - Conversion. Fixed an issue when reading either ASTORB or MPCORB, when the asteroid name involved accented characters. The use of accented characters in these files is a very recent event - and it is not yet clear whether it is intended to be a permanent change. This version of Occult ensures the current versions of these files can be correctly read. * Asteroid astrometry, MPC report. Added capability to generate an ADES format report of all observations of a single asteroid. ******** 4.12.9.1 General release 21 June 2021 ******** * Asteroid observations, using Center of Mass. Made some changes to ensure the center of mass offset value held in the Asteroid Observations file had the correct sign for the X value. * Reviewed the generation of the MPC report file, and the PDS archiving files, correctly handled the center of mass offset. Updated the header files used for creating the PDS Archive files. * Reviewed the handling of the 'old' check box for centering on a shape model, to ensure it was only enabled for observations which had that setting set. The setting cannot be newly set for any existing or new event. * Conversion of MPCORB and ASTORB. Added error-trapping to handle formatting errors if they exist in the source files. * Revised the Help file to give guidance on the Center of Mass setting. ******** 4.12.9.0 General release 19 June 2021 ******** * Asteroid observations, basis of astrometric reports. Previously the astrometry was derived on the basis of an observer at the center of the Earth. This astrometry had a 'hidden' dependency on the distance to the asteroid (which can vary with orbit improvements) The astrometry is now reported as the location of an observer located within the Earth at the point where the axis of the occultation shadow intersects the 'fundamental plane'. This format of astrometry is exactly identical to that used with astrometry from an orbiting spacecraft. The only difference is that the 'spacecraft' is within the Earth! [NOTE. This change is a fundamental improvement in the way astrometry is generated & reported.] * Asteroid observations, plot of event. Added an option to mark the center of mass of the asteroid. The marker is used as: + for normal events, place at the center of the ellipse fit + if a shape model is available which provides a good fit, place at the center of the shape model. The ellipse fit is not now fixed at the center of the shape model The center of the ellipse and shape model can differ. This allows for a better ellipse fit while maintaining an accurate astrometric position. + If a satellite system has a shape model, place at the center of the shape model + If a satellite system does not have a shape model, fit ellipses to both bodies, then position the marker so that the top labeled line next to the marker shows '0.0,0.0'. This location is the estimated center of mass, based on the ellipse sizes. NOTE. While this change was driven by the issues of generating astrometry from binary asteroids (specifically, the recent satellite discovery of 4337 Arecibo), this change results in a much improved handling of handling the center of mass issue when shape models are involved. * Updated the routines for generating MPC reports and PDS archive files, to make use of the center of mass position. * Revised the Asteroid Observations file, to include extra fields for the location of the center of mass. * Updated the display of the Astrometric Solution ******** 4.12.8.4 Beta release 5 June 2021 ******** * Asteroid predictions. Fixed a problem where the path was not being correctly generated in certain circumstances when it passed near to a pole. * Asteroid Observations, Statistics. Improved display of names. Added statistic on the number of chords. ******** 4.12.8.3 Beta release 31 May 2021 ******** * Asteroid predictions, inclusion of the star map on the world plot form. The setting about whether the star map is displayed is now retained between sessions * Asteroid Observations Editor. Have added a time display next to the button for adding or updating an entry, which displays the time since the last save or edit. It is color coded: blue for loaded and no need to save, Red - needs to be saved, Green - has been saved. At this stage cannot guarantee that all possible situations have been covered. A particular instance is if an observer's details are changed but the observer entry is not replaced with those changes. ******** 4.12.8.2 General release 27 May 2021 ******** * Precession etc. Made sure Occult was consistently using the 1976 values, for consistency with DE440. * Observations editor, asteroid Satellite. Improved data entry form to allow tabbing between forms (individual selection not possible at the moment...) and to require the use of satellite names that comply with the IAU naming requirements. [This is essential for astrometry reports to the Minor Planet Center etc.] * Added error trapping code in the routine for reading the Washington Double Star catalogue, to handle formatting errors when that catalogue. * Asteroid observations editor. Displays the index number of a selected event in the displayed list of events. * Asteroid observations - astrometry. Included an alternative method of reporting astrometry - viz specifying (x,y,z) coordinates within the Earth of the point where the observed shadow axis intersects with the Fundamental Plane. ******** 4.12.8.1 Beta release 8 May 2021 ******** * asteroid astrometry. Corrected the calculation of equatorial x,y,zero coords of shadow axis on fundamental plane. * Asteroid results. Updated code for generating MPC and PDS files ******** 4.12.8.0 General release 4 May 2021 ******** * Asteroid predictions etc. Address for downloading ASTORB. Updated following change at Lowell Observatory. * Asteroid predictions - star chart on world map. Changed the catalogue used to be Gaia12_EDR3, to remove a plotting defect. ******** 4.12.7.0 General release 28 April 2021 ******** * Corrected the implementation of the Gaia EDR3 frame rotation correction (wrong sign generally, and 3.6 times too large in predictions.) * Asteroid Observations Editor - asteroidal satellites. Added prompt to create a new entry when the satellite function is shown before any satellite solutions have been made. * Asteroid Observations - astrometry. Added test output of location of observed shadow axis on geocentric equatorial coordinates. ******** 4.12.6.0 General release 11 April 2021 ******** * Asteroid predictions. Fixed a problem where Occult hung in certain circumstances, where the orbital elements came from Horizons. * Asteroid predictions, List & Display. Added a filter on event probability * Asteroid editor/Shape models. Setting phase orientations. Changed the options to limit them to a small range. * Added capability to add un-released DAMIT shape models ******** v4.12.5.2 General release 7 April 2021 ******** * Asteroid reductions. Included correction for Earth Orientation parameters, including UT1-UTC. * Asteroid reductions. Increased the altitude below which the observations are corrected for refraction, from below 15 deg to below 30 deg. * Asteroid predictions. Fixed an issue of false predictions that arose when Miriade was being accessed combined with results being filtered. Caused by erroneous use of two variable names in the code. * Asteroid predictions, orbital elements from Horizons. The date given in the header for the JPL (i.e. Horizons) orbit is now correctly given as the Horizons solution date, rather than the date the elements were downloaded. Also included the Orbit ID. * Asteroid predictions. Updated error calculation to use error ellipses. ******** v4.12.5.1 General release 30 March 2021 ******** * Fixed a problem with downloading Horizons orbital elements - where an error reporting that an index is outside the limits. THis was caused by a 'Fixed text' line in the downloaded data, where the text was in fact variable. ******** v4.12.5.0 General release 29 March 2021 ******** * Asteroid search. Major improvement. When using Horizons for orbital elements, the Horizons error ellipse for the date is retrieved, and used to set the error limits on the predictions. This now gives realistic path uncertainties, not relying on the old approach of using the Peak Ephemeris Uncertainty from ASTORB. * Asteroid search. Incorporated a fix that applies when the Miriade server is inoperative. ******** v4.12.4.2 beta release 20 March 2021 ******** * Planet occultation predictions, UserStars. Fixed an issue affecting the calculation of the correct position of the star (including applying parallax) * Asteroid Observations editor. Added a display of the date an event was added, and last edited - near the button for adding or updating an observation. * Asteroid Observations editor. Added a small (non-obvious) button to set the check boxes for the three parameters of an ellipse. ******** v4.12.4.0 General release 17 March 2021 ******** * Asteroid observations editor. Adjusted the numerical precision of a range of variables and data fields, to ensure the iteration process was functional for small-diameter asteroids. [The code was previously built on the basis of asteroids having diameters of more than a small number of km.] Also made a general change to the least squares solution, changing the variation for position and size from a fixed value to a percentage of the asteroid's assumed diameter. * Asteroid observations editor. Fixed an issue when reading multiple observation files to add to the main file. [Position and ellipse details not being correctly incorporated.] * Asteroid observations editor. Fixed an issue that arose if a Miss observation failed to include an event time. * Asteroid predictions and observations. Included the frame rotation correction to Gaia EDR3 which affects the proper motion values Reference: https://arxiv.org/abs/2103.07432 ******** v4.12.3.1 General release 9 March 2021 ******** * Asteroid predictions - OW feed generator. Fixed a formatting problem associated with the addition of a column for reliability. Reviewed the formatting of the index.html file * Asteroid Predictions. A small change to facilitate searches done by OW-cloud ******** v4.12.3.1 General release 3 March 2021 ******** * Asteroid predictions. If the maximum predicted event duration is less than 2 seconds, the maximum duration is listed to 2 decimal places. Similar changes to the listing of the asteroid's diameter. * Asteroid Observations Editor. Added a 'tool-tip' to the Weight fields, to set out the default weights that are applied when the Weight field is left as blank. This is to assist when manually entering a weight to give reduced (or occasionally increased) weight to particular observations - which is used in the Least-squares solution for the position and shape of the asteroid. ******** v4.12.3.0 General release 27 Feb 2021 ******** * Fixed an issue where the diameter of an object specified in a User Elements file was being ignored. Affected comets, and asteroids numbered greater than 550,000. * Asteroid Observations editor. Where fades due to stellar diameter are likely, a note is now displayed in the Star box. Possible options are: # Annular occultation (when the star diameter is greater than the asteroid) # Major fades expected (when the star diameter is greater than 50% of the asteroid's diameter # x.x sec fades expected (when the star diameter is less than 50% of the asteroid's diameter, and the expected fade duration is 0.1 sec or greater. This should assist in ensuring light curves are considered for possible fades, as well as indicating when more derailed consideration of light curves is warranted. * Asteroid Observations editor. Added the capability to include a free text comment in the Prediction line - to allow for comments relevant to the event as a whole. * Lunar predictions/Observations. Removed all support/reference to the Kaguya lunar profile, including in the Help file. NOTE: The files Kaguya.bin, KaguyaHiRes.bin and KaguyaHiRes.inx can be deleted from the '\Resource Files' folder. * Updated the routine for editing the file containing asteroid diameters, which is used in predictions, and the default diameter used in reductions. [The routine is accessed from the Maintenance tab] * Increased the statistics output for asteroid occultation observations, to include numbers by diameter range, and by magnitude drop. Also, to give the number of different asteroids observed during the period. ******** v4.12.2.0 General release 14 Feb 2021 ******** * Asteroid predictions. Message about expected fades due to stellar diameter. Fixed an issue that had the flag appearing on every event. Modified the flag to indicate the minimum expected duration of a fade (it gets longer towards the path edge), and only displays the message if the expected duration is greater than 0.01 secs. * Removed the download of the Rio & LuckyStar predictions from the download page - the download and conversion is fully handled on the asteroid Predictions form. Disabled the downloads of the Kaguya lunar limb profile in anticipation of removing all support for using this dataset. [It is fully superseded by the LOLA dataset.] ******** v4.12.1.1 Test release 13 Feb 2021 ******** * Display catalogue details of stars [on Maintenance tab]. Failure to display data for UCAC4 stars fixed. Also ensured Gaia_EDR3 details were listed when available. * Conversion of LuckyStar and RIO files - ensured an asteroid number (and not just its name or designation) was given when it exists. * List & Display of asteroid predictions. Added a 'Local Horizon' filter option to the available filters. Likely use is for observers who have an extended elevated horizon - such as a mountain ridge - which can't be avoided by a walking-distance move of a portable telescope. Or for those who have a fixed telescope with local obstacles such as a house roof. ******** v4.12.1.0 General release 9 Feb 2021 ******** * Asteroid search - list of available Gaia catalogues. Fixed issue of multiple entries. * Asteroid search - excluded asteroids where the orbital epoch was before 2015 from the search. This is because any such orbits are inherently hugely unreliable. * Asteroid search. Extensive rework of old code for selecting asteroids - to provide ability to specify/select un-numbered asteroids. * Asteroid - conversion of orbital elements. Fixed an issue whereby asteroidal moons were not being found for un-numbered asteroids. * Asteroid - List & Display - listing of time of closest approach to the observer. When the object is near a stationary point, the path can be extremely non-linear making the determination of the closest time very difficult. Where a time of closest approach does not converge during an iteration, the event is not listed when the list is sorted by visible at a location. * Asteroid - List & Display. The List & Display form now has an option to filter on the basis of telescope aperture. Capability added to fill the telescope aperture filter. For the Home site, users will have to go to the User Settings page and fill in the telescope aperture in Group 1. * Asteroid - List & Display. Ensured the filter based on star magnitude was based on either star magnitude, or combined magnitude - depending on which magnitude is being displayed. * Asteroid & Planet search, limit output to events visible from near a site location. Added the capability to select a site from the Site files - as in the List & Display form. Planetary moons treated the same as asteroids. Planets are not restricted on distance; for Venus, Jupiter and Saturn, daylight events are allowed if the star is brighter than mag 5.0 * Planetary satellite ephemerides - added Set all and Clear all buttons for Jupiter, Saturn & Uranus (plus Clear all for Pluto) * Asteroid observations. Added a flag to indicate when the circumstances of an event indicate the possibility that certain aspects might be resolved in the future if relevant extra information becomes available. [For example, a possible asteroidal satellite detection, with a subsequent detection from other sources of a satellite for that asteroid.] * Asteroid result reporting. Updated the routines for reporting to the Minor Planet Center, and for Archiving at NASA's PDS system. * RIO predictions - revised conversion to incorporate RUWE and Duplicate Source flags that are now included. * Asteroid predictions, Star diameter. The diameter being displayed was a factor of 1000 smaller than it should have been (& was therefore generally zero) Fixed. * Asteroid Predictions, UserStar. Enabled the use of user specified values for reliability, duplicate source, and proper motion issues. ******** v4.12.0.0 Release for testing 26 Jan 2021 ******** * Major revisions associated with the implementation of Gaia EDR3. These include: # Removal of support for UCAC2, UCAC3, UCAC5, URAT1 # Creating Gaia16_EDR3, Gaia14_EDR3 and Gaia12_EDR3 catalogues, and made the extensive the changes need to use these catalogues - as a result of incorporating extra data items that are particularly relevant to reductions. Downloads of Gaia14_DR2 and Gaia11_DR2 are no longer available. However they continue to be usable in Occult. # Asteroid observations. Allowed free text comments to be made against the Prediction line. Such comments are intended to relate to the event overall (such as why astrometry is not being reported). # changes in the display of star catalogue details, to display the full data that is available # in the List and Display for for asteroid predictions, add an extra column that gives the azimuth of the star # overhauled the routine for generating Gaia-based catalogues # asteroid searches - added the capability to limit search output to those paths passing within a specified distance of a location (such as an observer's location). This is VERY good for personal and local-region predictions, as it seriously limits the number of events that are output. * Conversion of LuckyStar events. Added the capability to use a previously downloaded set of predictions - enabling editing of that file (if needed to fix a formatting issue) * Plot of world map. Fixed an issue that resulted in the border between the Czech and Slovak republics not being plotted. * Asteroid Predictions. Made changes to ensure predictions of un-numbered minor planets could use Horizons. Fixed issue with plot of moon orbits not occurring when Horizons was used. * Asteroid Predictions - retrieving binary asteroid ephemerides from Miriade. Fixed an issue associated with some changes made at IMCCE with the generation of the xml file that is retrieved when Occult requests an ephemeris. * AOTA, + reporting light curves. Increased the maximum frame rate for manual setting from 60fps to 600fps. * Asteroid observations. Further improvements in the generation of astrometry reports for the Minor Planet Center. Complete revision of the output generated for archiving at NASA's Planetary Data System - moving to a csv-type format (using 'pipes' | as the separator. [This needs updating given the changes associated with the implementation of EDR3. ******** v4.11.0.1 General release 5 November 2020 ******** * Light Curve reporter. Fixed problem with reporting a light curve when AOTA was not displayed (an issue for those reporting light curves using .csv files not interpreted by AOTA (for example, PYOTE) * Asteroid Observations, Editor. Fixed problem with full Gaia star data not being incorporated into the event record. Added a display message when the full Gaia data is being retrieved on-line. And ensured Gaia search was adequate to locate stars having large proper motions (an issue with old events) ******** v4.11.0. General release 30 October 2020 ******** * Asteroid predictions. Added a warning message when the orbital parameters of the asteroid are such that the Occult integration scheme may be inadequate, in which case the user should make sure they use elements downloaded from Horizons for a date near the possible occultation (which can be found doing a search despite the warning). The orbital parameters that give this warning are: Perihelion distance < 0.7 AU, or eccentricity > 0.5.* Asteroid observations. Added a flag in the Date field to indicate the number of light curves for that event that are in the Occult Light Curve files, and can be viewed via the Light Curve Viewer. Flag only visible when a light curve is available. * Reporting LightCurves. A bug has been identified that prevented proper emailing of a light curve report. The email requires a 'From' and 'BCC' address, which is normally handled internally. However the address does need to be set.. The program has applied a check when reporting lunar occultations, but did not do a check when reporting a light curve. Regrettably, if the address had not been set, the email would fail - with no opportunity to add the address. This has now been fixed. * Asteroid predictions, display of stellar diameter. Included a message when the magnitude data required to estimate a magnitude was not available. * Asteroid predictions, conversion of LuckyStar and RIO files. Now use UCAC4 magnitudes when available, rather than the LuckStar or RIO mags - to ensure star diameter estimates can be generated from predictions based on these files. ----- * Asteroid observations. Major improvements in handling uncertainties in association with reporting astrometry. Extra field added to the Asteroid~Observations file (MainBody line) to provide: - a code to indicate the basis of the uncertainty in identifying the centre of mass of the asteroid - two fields that give the resulting change to the default location calculated by Occult - two fields that give the location of the extrema of the 'hit' chords, expressed in asteroid radius. - two fields that give the closest Miss chords on either side, expressed in asteroid radius. * Asteroid observations, reporting astrometry. Changes made to the report details and content to meet the jointly-agreed requirements of the MPC, Horizons, and the Gaia team computing asteroid orbits from Gaia observations. ----- * Asteroid predictions, search form. A check box has been added in the 'Do the search' group, labeled JWST. At the moment this is provided solely for testing purposes. It enables predictions to be generated for the location of the James West Space Telescope, which is due to be launched some time after October 2021. One program for the JWST involves attempts to observe occultations by TNO's - requiring predictions for the telescope location, rather than on the Earth. For test purposes, the predictions are generated for the L2 point, not the actual JWST location. ******** v4.10.7.1 Beta release 13 October 2020 ******** * Early release - with fix to better handle lack of availability of the Gaia server * Partial implementation of improved uncertainties ******** v4.10.7.0 General release 24 September 2020 ******** * Asteroid searches. Selection of a Gaia catalog. Added a check box to disable the plot of the star chart when a Gaia catalogue is changed. This is relevant to those who have created large Gaia based catalogues. * Asteroid shape models - demonstration. Fixed some issue where the asteroid orientation was not being retrieved, and ISAM models were not listed whenever the selected asteroid was changed. * Asteroid shape models. Added a download capability to download all current shape models from the Occult server - making it much quicker (10's of seconds) to obtain all currently available asteroid models. this includes Ceres, Vesta and Arrokoth. * Downloads. 'Hopefully' fixed the occasional recurrent problem of download not going away when a download is done. [Made sure the required date comparison was on a UT basis rather than local time] ******** v4.10.6.4 Beta release 9 September 2020 ******** * Asteroid observations editor, drop-down box for selecting events. When Planets is selected, ensured listing was by date for each planet. * Asteroid observations editor. Selection of asteroids by date. For the years after 2017, the listing is on a 6-month basis. ******** v4.10.6.3 Beta release 7 September 2020 ******** * Asteroid reductions. Updated the extraction of RUWE following changes to the way the data element was stored in the Gaia dataset. * Asteroid observations editor. Changed the definitions of the first two 'Method' values to 'Analogue & digital video', and 'Digital SLR-camera video' [from 'Analogue video' and 'Digital video'. ******** v4.10.6.2 Beta release 16 August 2020 ******** * Asteroidal predictions. Error in diameter for unnumbered asteroids, or asteroid >550,000 - fixed * Asteroid Observations Editor. Fixed issue with Gaia positions not being retrieved when the number was specified by coordinates. ******** v4.10.6.1 Beta release 11 August 2020 ******** * Fixed a problem with lunar occultation predictions. Cause was blank entries in the ZC.DAT file, which corresponded to stars in the ZC catalogue that were too far from the ecliptic to be occulted. ******** v4.10.6.0 General release 7 August 2020 ******** * On plot of asteroid results, added the 'near to" field to observer names (when available) * Fixed a bug in retrieving data for a specified star by coordinates, where it was possible for the code to try to read an entry beyond the end of the file. * Added function to create a file of Surface/volume ratios for all asteroids (on Shape model option under Ephemerides) * Added Help topic for the form for displaying shape models ******** v4.10.5.0 General release 5 June 2020 ******** * Revised the file of asteroid diameters by i) undertaking a comprehensive review of the various sources of asteroid diameters from IR satellites, (including incorporation of diameters from spacecraft which have visited the asteroid). (ii) where there is no such diameter, populating the entry with a diameter derived from the absolute magnitude of the asteroid. (iii) incorporating the uncertainty in the diameter Revised the diameters of the Planets and their satellites, and incorporated their uncertainties. Revised the Asteroid~Observations file to include the updated IR satellite asteroid, planet, and planetary satellite diameters and diameter uncertainty. Also for asteroids with a circular fit based on the IR satellite diameter, updated the diameter for that fit. Revised the Prediction plot, and the Observations editor, to display the uncertainty in the diameter. * Asteroid predictions. To facilitate one-off predictions of an asteroid on aberration particular day, the search form was changed so that i) when the 'add one day' button in group 1 is clicked, the form for selecting asteroids is displayed. (ii) if then only one asteroid has been selected, 'Use Horizons' is checked and the search is automatically undertaken. As a result, the search is undertaken just by setting the date and the asteroid number. * Predictions - User Star. In Planet Predictions, the User file reference had not been updated to the .csv file (the code was still pointing to the old.dat file). Corrected. * Corrected an error in setting the Download Chevrons for #9 Asteroid Classes. * Asteroid observations, plot of chords. Corrected an issue involving zero-weighted observations, where the un-occulted star path was being plotted even when zero-weighted observations were not set to be plotted. * Added a capability to manually process a ShapeModel .obj file - to create shape models for Ceres and Vesta from DAWN shape models. [Until the shape models are available on ISAM, the proper incorporation of such models into Occult needs to be done manually - not recommended.] * Asteroid Observations editor. Added function under List to display a light curve from a previous occultation of the star (either Asteroidal or Lunar). NOTE the full capability of this function depends upon observers submitting their light curves. * Corrected the calculation for computing the correlation for output of astrometry - conversion of along/across track uncertainties to RA/Dec uncertainties. * Display of asteroid diameters. Reformatted the lines to include % change in diameter from satellite diameter, and added ability to suppress line breaks and header lines. * Plot of shape models. Changed the color for the South pole to Blue, to avoid issues for those with red-green color blindness. ******** v4.10.4.0 General release 27 April 2020 ******** * A general revision of the 'Star Diameter Analyser' tool. A tool to measure the diameter of a star when an occultation light curve has fading over several frames. * Star maps. Rectified problem e&perienced by new users of Occult, whereby the Gaia_DR2 catalogue was not being recognised when drawing star charts. ******** v4.10.3.0 General release 22 April 2020 ******** * Lunar occultations of the major planets. Fi&ed up a problem with incorrect positions being used. * Lunar graze profile form. Fi&ed up a problem with re-sizing the form * Asteroidal occultation observations. For some events involving asteroids with satellites, only events involving the satellite are observed. However for the purposes of generating astrometry for those satellites, a 'dummy' event for the primary component is included in the record. The file format has been e&panded to include a field in the astrometry line for primary components to identify when the entry is a dummy entry that should not be used for reporting astrometry of the main body. ******** v4.10.2.0 General release 17 April 2020 ******** * Computing asteroid predictions using JPL-Horizons. A new approach implemented using the listing of events in the List & Display form to control the asteroid elements to be downloaded from Horizons. * Plot of star chart on the world plot of an Asteroid predictions. The code assumes the presence of a catalogue that was available with Gaia DR1 release. Unfortunately the download of that catalogue was removed with Gaia DR2. Code was added to avoid the problem (hopefully!) ******** v4.10.1.0 General release 4 April 2020 ******** * Serious error reported/identified that affected the calculation of the apparent position of the Sun, and the major planets Mercury to Pluto. The issue is associated with the computation of the ‘apparent’ positions of the Sun, and the major planets Mercury to Pluto. [Technically, a scaling factor of 0.00577551833 was not applied at one of two locations where annual aberration was computed/applied.] The issue affects calculations where ‘apparent’ positions of objects are used - such as solar and lunar eclipses, lunar occultations of the major planets, and in the generation of an ‘apparent’ ephemeris of a planet. It has not affected the prediction or reduction of stellar occultations by the major planets or asteroids. The problem was introduced no earlier than at v. 4.7.3.0 (14 Sep 2019); there is some basis for me to believe the problem was introduced relatively recently. ******** v4.10.0.2 Beta release 30 March 2020 ******** * Download of the AstDyS2 orbital elements. Fi&ed an issue with determining whether the web site was available. ******** v4.10.0.1 Beta release 28 March 2020 ******** * Display of statistics. Count of stars by magnitude range in error (an oversight from the changes in 4.10.0.0). Fi&ed. * Observations editor, pasting of observations from JOIN. Fi&ed a parsing error regarding the time for a prediction line. * Lunar occultation predictions. The flag for the presence of the JPL-DE ephemeris was not set prior to the first position for the solar ephemeris being generated - leading to an anomalous solar ephemeris which impacted on %ill, elong, Sun Alt, Cusp Angle & visibility. ******** v4.10.0.0 General release 22 March 2020 ******** * This version involves a major revision of the observations editor, and the format of the file of Asteroid~Observations. The revisions are many in detail, but the major ones are: a. retrieval of full Gaia data for a star from the ESA web site b. E&pansion of the file to incorporate uncertainty information about the star c. Better treatment of uncertainties associated with an observation, including a separate treatment of the time uncertainty in the reported times, and the uncertainties associated with fitting the chords to an ellipse or shape model d. For single-chord events ( or events with a small number of closely located chords) a better treatment of the uncertainties from such observations e. Provision of a form for displaying the astrometric results from occultations, with detailed uncertainty information provided. f. For events where a satellite of an asteroid is detected, changed the code structure to allow for up to 4 separate satellites. (The 2019 Oct 24 Sylvia event involved 2 satellites). g. For double star events, the double star solution panel has been made a floating panel (like for satellites). This has 'de-cluttered' the form for plotting the events. As a result of these changes, the file format for Asteroid~Observations.&ml has changed significantly - particularly for the lines dealing with the star position, and for the astrometry of satellites. * An additional update is for the file of regional coordinators for reporting lunar occultations. Brian Loader is retiring from that role for New Zealand. ******** v4.9.7.0 General release 10 Feb 2020 ******** * Further improvements/debugging to the shape model handling * Re-enabled the tool for generating ephemerides of asteroid satellites using the Miriade system at Paris Observatory * Added tool-tips to a large number of option buttons on the main form of Occult, so that the available functionality was more apparent ******** v4.9.6.1 Beta release 5 Feb 2020 ******** * Complete overhaul of the routines for handing shape models, with both DAMIT and ISAM models being generated locally. Details are given in the Help file associated with the shape model form. ******** v4.9.5.5 Beta release 5 Jan 2020 ******** * Local generation of DAMIT shape models. Identified the cause of inconsistency with DAMIT V2 and ISAM models - which was a coding issue in DAMIT V3. ******** v4.9.5.2 General release 31 Dec 2019 ******** * Fi&ed a problem with lunar occultation predictions where stars were being erroneously e&cluded from the search because of issues of solar and lunar elevations. ******** v4.9.5.2 General release 29 Dec 2019 ******** * Asteroid shape models. Included test functionality to generate shape models from the shape model data. Driven by the effect of changes to the DAMIT web site this functionality generates models much faster. Integration with the prediction and reduction routines will occur in due course. * Asteroid observations, double stars. Added functionality to output a file of double star results, suitable for archiving at VizieR. * Asteroid Observations - retrieving orbital elements from Horizons. Fi&ed an issue when the MidTime of the event was set to 24 hrs or greater. * Slow start-up. Removed a check for the last update of AstDys2 from the start-up routine, as this was potentially causing significant slowness in starting Occult. ******** v4.9.5.0 General release 7 Dec 2019 ******** * Asteroid observations. Developed code to generate the astrometric position of the asteroid at the time of geocentric conjunction - in addition to the astrometry at the event time. Reformatted the Asteroid~Observations file to incorporate an e&tra line providing positions and uncertainties for the 'at conjunction' time, with the uncertainties for single-chord events (in particular) being resolved along-path and across path. Increased the precision of the shadow's hourly motion. * Asteroid observations file. The characters & < > " ' require special handling in an &MLfile in order to be &ML compliant. These characters were replaced with the &ml format for such characters, and the code for reading and writing the file was adjusted to convert from/to the &ml format. * Asteroid observations. Developed a display of the astrometric results, with options to display the data in several different formats, as well as copying just selected lines. * Asteroid observations, event at low altitude. For completion, added correction to the observer's site altitude to correct for atmospheric refraction. * Lunar occultations. Resolved an issue with occultations of planets, which could result in a program crash when the starting from time was set to -6 hours. Also improved the code so that the time of conjunction was properly assessed, with conjunction being computed as an ecliptic longitude conjunction rather than a Right Ascension conjunction. * Downloads of files from US Naval Observatory, and AAVSO. Consequent upon temporary closure of the USNO web site, changed the download location for several files to VizieR. Other files were sourced from a mirror site. The AAVSO file was changed to be source from VizieR, which avoided a change in format. ******** v4.9.4.2 Beta release 19 Nov 2019 ******** * Fi&ed a problem with converting MPCORB, where an orbital epoch before 2000 was converted to be an epoch 100 years after the correct date. This problem only became apparent when unnumbered asteroids observed at less than 3 oppositions where included in the conversion. The problem became apparent vie the program looking for planetary elements in the late 2000's for he numerical integration. ******** v4.9.4.1 Beta release 17 Nov 2019 ******** * E&ternal access prediction routine. Fi&ed an issue arising from the implementation of Horizons access consequential to the 4.9.0.0 implementation. * Made some changes to rectify issues with the routines for creating the archive files for PDS ******** v4.9.4.0 General release 13 Nov 2019 ******** * Issue with Baily Beads module not generating the plots. Caused by a change required following from the changed implementation of the JPL-DE ephemeris in V.4.7.3 that had not been identified. The effect was to locate the sun on the e&act opposite side of the ecliptic. Apart from its effect on the Baily Bead plot, it also affected the generation of limb profiles for local predictions. ******** v4.9.3.2 Beta release 30 Oct 2019 ******** * asteroid predictions using Horizons. The fi& in v 4.9.3.1 was insufficient. Hopefully the issue is fully fi&ed. ******** v4.9.3.1 Beta release 29 Oct 2019 ******** * asteroid predictions using Horizons. Fi&ed an issue with a loss of selected asteroids when the check bo& for Horizons was cleared. ******** v4.9.3.0 General release 25 Oct 2019 ******** * Asteroid observations and predictions. Rectified an issue with the calculation of the distance and paralla& of an asteroid or planet to correctly apply planetary aberration. * Asteroid observations. Incorporated differential nutation into the derivation of the derived astrometry. * Historical file of asteroid observations. Reprocessed to include the corrected paralla& and the consequentially corrected derived astrometric position of the asteroid, as well as differential nutation. Changed the location of the File Version to be at the 2nd line of the file. * Ephemerides - plot of planets. Fi&ed an issue where alternate rings of a planet were incorrectly oriented when the plot was generated with the 'Earth correct'. * Lunar occultation predictions. Options to filter events. Corrected an incorrect linking of Daylight events and Bright limb events. * Downloading DAMIT shape models. Fi&ed an issue that was preventing downloads (a security change at the server) ******** v4.9.2.0 General release 19 Oct 2019 ******** * Asteroid observations, generation of data for the position of the asteroid. Enabled the downloading of elements from Horizons as the default source of elements. * Asteroid observations, generation of astrometric positions. Identified an omission in the required calculation - the inclusion of differential aberration. Corrected. * Historical file of asteroid observations. Reprocessed to include the correction for differential aberration. Also added a file version number at the beginning of the file - for use when the file format changes in the future. ******** v4.9.1.0 General release 18 Oct 2019 ******** * fi&ed a problem with displaying the astrometric solution of asteroidal occultations * increased the number of data points along the path of an asteroidal occultation, to improve the plot in GoogleEarth (request from Paris Obs). ******** v4.9.0.0 General release 17 Oct 2019 ******** * Asteroid Observations. Added an e&tra field in the Observations file to specify the hourly rate of change in the paralla& of the asteroid. While the effect is very small, it needs to be present to ensure the offset of the asteroid from the occulted star at the event time is rigorously calculated. Consequent upon this change, the Observation file has been revised to include the rate of change of paralla& for all objects, and the file name was changed tab Asteroid~Observations.&ml to avoid compatibility issues. When the revised version of Occult is first run, the new observations file will be downloaded. * Asteroid predictions. Added a capability to 'automatically' retrieve an orbit from Horizons for an asteroid search. This capability is provided as a one-off situation on the normal search for, and a general option on the form for editing UserAsteroids. * Asteroid observations, PDS archiving. Fi&ed an issue with ensuring a Gaia star identifier in the form of coordinates was limited to hhmmss.s+ddmmss to ensure a field overflow did not occur in the PDS archive file. *Asteroid observations, parsing events from Euraster and JOIN. Ensured the symbols '<' and '>', which are used as part of the tags in the &ml format, are replaced by '.lt.' and '.gt.' * Conversion of LuckyStar files. Added additional error trapping relevant to object identification in the LuckyStar source file not being in accordance with the LuckyStar specification.