CRP-News

The database for the discovery circumstances (publicly available at Minor Planet Center/IAU) has been updated.

It now contain more than 300 000 data about the discovery dates, discoverers, observatories, designations, number and names of all currently known asteroids, minor planets, Centaurs, SDOs, TNOs, Kuiperoids, dwarf planets etc.

It's been used below the java applet of the 3D-orbit viewer. Just enter a designation, name or number to view the orbit and the discovery data.

I just fixed the wrong links in the wap-portal due to an expired domain.

Old domain was: wap.centaurs.info

Please delete those bookmarks in your cell's browser and use the main domain now:
http://wap.kentauren.info

All services are back online now, sorry for any inconvenience, thanks!

Robert

I remodelled the dynamic site mechanism from frames to iframes mode, which is a bit faster and more compatible to modern browsers. Therefore compatibility issues with both IE9 and Firefox 4 has been resolved. JavaScript and cookies are still necessary. In case of problems please delete your local browsers cache and maybe also some bookmarks.

I have added the very special transneptunian minor planet and "prototype" 1992 QB1 to the new special Centaur/SDO-ephemeris tool. This was the very first transplutnian/transneptunian minor planet discovered of all hundreds later (in August 1992)
and was nicknamed "Cubewano". Although its orbit is precisely determined and the object is also numbered (which reflects its stable orbit determination) no name has been given it yet. It was thought it has to get a name of a creation deity as 1992 QB1 is a real transplutonian object within the kuiper belt.
The second discovery after 1992 QB1 was 1993 FW, a similar transplutonian minor planet, also its orbit is precisely determined and its numbered but again no name has been given yet. Salacia is a SDO discovered in 2004 and probably the newest naming and member of the few named transneptunian/transplutonian objects.

I have updated the database for the asteroids/minor planets discovery circumstances used within the 3d-orbit plot tool. Now the discoverer & discovery data for more than 269 000 solar system objects are included, previously there were 170000. Source: Open database by Minor Planet Center, IAU.

I have created another new ephemeris database tool for 14 very special Centaurs, SDOs and transneptunian objects including Sedna, Orcus, Logos...
Time range is 1650-2050 in UT, very precise computation using astorb-database osculating elements by Bowell observatory and very precise high order numerical integration by Solex 11.0. Go to 14 new objects ephemeris tool

I've added a new high-precision ephemeris tool for the five special asteroids related to Fukushima:

Fukushima
Hiroshima
Nagasaki
Tokio
Hybris

Time-range is 1850-2050, times are always given in UT

5 special asteroids ephemeris tool related to Fukushima

Initial ephemeris computation by registered software Solex 11.0 by Aldo Vitagliano, taking into account major planet and minor planet perturbation, light time, aberration, Delta-T, nutation, Moon tidal acceleration, relativity perturbation and high order precision numerical integration. Planets are according to DE421. osculating elements are by Bowell observatory, astorb database 2010

I fixed a minor bug fix when a planet, asteroid or Centaur is retrograde, interpolation of ephemeris positions were wrong and the 'r' for retrograde motionw as not displayed in many ephemeris tables.
At the same time a slightly higher precision is established using 5-order interpolation from ephemeris positions for all calculations and ephemeris tables here. That's is important especially for fast moving objects like e.g. the Moon and fast asteroids like e.g. Icarus or Phaeton. But it's also enhancing positions for Sun, Mercury, Venus and Mars within arc-seconds.

The homepage is a bit rebrushed using some new features and widgets, like e.g. the revolvermap-widget which shows from which city someone is currently browsing. The data are not stored in any way of course.

If you are a member of twitter, facebook and/or google groups you can also joins the CRP and/or follow me at the social networks. Just browse to the CRP-homepage and click onto the join buttons.

More information regarding my astrological and astronomical twitter-services can be found here.

I have published a webpage explaining the new astrological and astronomical twitter services: astrologyservices on twitter.

I've created a twitter service which provides current and precise ecliptical/zodiacal positions of the actual ascendant and midheaven (Medium Coeli) for currently 16 major cities around the global. The service updates the calculations every 30 minutes via twitter API. It also points out celestial local events like e.g. rise and set or culmination of Sun, Moon and planets for each city.
The service is public on twitter since last Monday, everyone who has a twitter account can follow its public timeline and get the actual ascendant and midheaven positions. Cities currently provided: Munich, Berlin, London, Paris, Rome, Stockholm, Vienna, Zurich, Moskow, Madrid, Los Angeles, Houston Texas, New York, Kairo, Tokio and Sydney. URL: @acmc_clock

I have launched a small site and online photo album with my butterfly photos from summer 2009:

Robert von Heeren's butterflies 2009

Enjoy some wonderful photos!

I've been busy setting up new sites and connecting to social networks. I'm especially present
on daily basis astrologically and other in English on twitter.
 

Feel free to follow or add me here:

Robert alias zwitscherrob on twitter

Facebook

English LinkedIn-profile (business)

MySpace (also music)

many astro-animations on YouTube

Music on iLike

German Xing-profile (business)

Google

My typepad-profile

New English typepad blog

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My new sites:

German Tarot-site

German music-site

German astrology-site

German and English Websolutions-site

I'm sorry to tell you that the external chart computing service has been discontinued.
I will replace it with a better solution in cooperation with AstroSoft Happel and AstroServ.biz.
Don't be alarmed if e.g. chart popups within the VIP-search or elsewhere
display an error "serivce unavailable".

Webmaster

There are three new homepages:

Robert von Heeren Websolutions (English)
Astrostudio Robert von Heeren (German)
Musikstudio Robert von Heeren (German)

The osculating elements database for the asteroid, Centaurs, TNO, SDO and so on - orbits has been update to more than 178 000 currently known and numbered objects. Also the additional table for the discovery circumstances (below the orbit plots) has been updated to more than 178 000 minor planets (numbered objects only). BTW: Pluto is also included with catalog number 134340.

See 3D-Orbit-Viewer java applet