Comet for Windows Tutorial

Japanese version
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Updated on August 3, 2005

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    Statistics of Orbits    

o Sort comets.

Comet for Windows can sort and display comets in the order of some parameter of orbital elements.

Please launch Comet for Windows, and select "Menu" - "Obrital Elements" menu. Next, please select "Setting" - "Select Comets" menu, and select some comets. Then the orbital elements of the selected comets are displayed.

Now please select "View" - "Format" - "Sort Key and Comet Name" menu. Next, please select a key of sorting from "View" - "Sort" menu. Then the pairs of the sorting key value and the comet name are displayed in the order.

For example, the following comets are displayed when sorting short periodic comets using "Sort by Period (P)" menu.


    3.30  2P/Encke
    4.29  107P/(4015) Wilson-Harrington
    4.42  P/2005 JQ5 ( Catalina )
    4.85  P/2003 KV2 ( LINEAR )
    4.86  P/2004 X1 ( LINEAR )
    4.98  P/2002 O5 ( NEAT )
    5.01  P/2001 WF2 ( LONEOS )
    5.03  P/2004 CB ( LINEAR )
    5.13  96P/Machholz 1
    5.23  141P/Machholz 2

This list shows that periodic comets with very short period have been discovered one after another in the 21th century.

For another example, the following comets are displayed when sorting short periodic comets using "Sort by Eccentricity (e)" menu.


 0.0288709   158P/Kowal-LINEAR
 0.044170    29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 1
 0.1222284   82P/Gehrels 3
 0.1351033   P/1999 DN3 ( Korlevic-Juric )
 0.1402642   111P/Helin-Roman-Crockett
 0.1475565   74P/Smirnova-Chernykh

Comet 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 1 is famous as a comet observable all around the orbit. But this list shows that the orbit of Comet 158P/Kowal-LINEAR, a new comet discovered in 2001, is more circular than that now.

For another example, the following comets are displayed when sorting short periodic comets using "Sort by Inclination (i)" menu and "Reverse" menu.


170.4792    C/2000 G2 ( LINEAR )
164.47463   C/2003 U1 ( LINEAR )
162.48615   55P/Tempel-Tuttle
162.2422    1P/Halley
156.99191   C/2000 D2 ( LINEAR )
149.1943    C/2003 R1 ( LINEAR )
145.45863   C/2002 CE10 ( LINEAR )

Only two comets, 1P/Halley and 55P/Tempel-Tuttle, have been known as retrograde periodic comets whose inclination is larger than 140 degree before. But this list shows that many retrograde periodic comets have been discovered one after another since 2000.

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Copyright(C) Seiichi Yoshida (comet@aerith.net). All rights reserved.