Keying In Comet Data for Autostar

[Airconvent]

Hi Fizzy12 and all,
Have found out how to do this manually.

On the autostar, go to "objects", "solar system", "comets", "Add"
Then key in the data as follows:

Sample comet Info :
C/2002 H2 (LINEAR) |2000|20020323.461 | 1.63562 |1.00000 | 20.445 |269.011 |110.478 |10.5 |10.0 | MPEC 2002-H40

It will now ask for Epoch date:
(First 4 digits is year, digit 5-6 is month, remaining digits round off to xx.x format)
23.5-Mar-2002 [enter]

Perihelion Distance: (how close it gets to the sun, in AU (earth orbit radii)
1.63562
Eccentricity: (how round the orbit is)
1.0000
Arg. of Per.: (argument of Perihelion, the RA of closest sun approach)
20.4450
Lon Asc Node: (RA where it heads above the equator)
269.011
Inclination: (tilt of orbit compared to equator)
110.478
Absolute Magnitude (how bright it would be at a fixed distance)
10.5

No decimal points need to key in as autostar will do so autmatically. Just use the right cursor to move to next digit.

Here is the data for the 3 primary comets

C/2001 Q4 (NEAT) |2000|20040515.9600 | 0.961929 |1.000706 | 1.2052 |210.2765 | 99.6419 | 3.5 |10.0 | MPC 50914
C/2002 T7 (LINEAR) |2000|20040423.0625 | 0.614571 |1.000499 |157.7382 | 94.8574 |160.5831 | 4.0 |10.0 | MPC 50914
C/2004 F4 (Bradfield) |2000|20040417.12 | 0.1690 |1.0000 |332.49 |222.66 | 63.21 | 8.0 | 7.0 | IAUC 8319

Have fun