HORIZONS Track Overlay Generator for SkyMap 

This Windows utility is designed to generate asteroid (or other object) 
tracks as map overlays in SkyMap using ephemerides computed by JPL's HORIZONS
online utility. This software makes use of the Telnet and E-mail interfaces 
to HORIZONS.

This may be advantageous in some cases where SkyMap does not compute accurate 
positions for orbits which have sigificant perturbations, such as the case 
with asteroid 2012 DA14's close flyby of Earth on 15/16 February 2013. 

Simply double-click horizons_track.exe to start.

The program extracts observer location information from SkyMap's registry 
entries, which is displayed top-right of the window. Your obligation is to
specify the User-Inputs at top-left of the window; this includes the object
name or designation, Start and Stop track times, and the Step between 
positions.

Once this information is set, click Telnet to obtain ephemerides via an
automatic Telnet session with HORIZONS. Alternatively, click Make Batch Email 
and follow instructions to obtain the ephemerides via the Email service.

When positions are obtained and displayed in the HORIZONS Output text area,
click the Generate Overlay button to write a SkyMap overlay .sol format
file to the path specified at left. The file path is automatically set to 
your SkyMap overlay folder, and the filename based on the Object name. To 
change the path, click Browse. Choose position labelling options with the
checkboxes at the bottom of the window.

To add the overlay in SkyMap, go to File menu->Preferences->External Data->
Map Overlays. In the dialogue box, click Add, and choose the Path to the
new .sol file.

If you overwrite the overlay with updated positions, the fastest way to 
update the display in SkyMap (as far as I can see) is to click the 
Catalogues and Overlays tool button to bring up the associated dialogue box,
ensure the overlay file is checked, and just click OK to update the display.
Another way is to use File->New to create a new map.

14-Feb-2013, Version 1.0. 
Tested with Windows XP SP3 and SkyMap Pro 11. Hopefully, it works elsewhere.

14-Feb-2013, Version 1.1:
Fixed issue with time prompts for some classes of objects.

ad371@xtra.co.nz
