MpcReader is just a little toy to retrieve comet and asteroid orbital data in MPC format from the web and store it on your computer in different formats. The data is fetched from the Minor Planet Center at the 'Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO)'. It's written in pure JAVA and therefore you must have JAVA installed to run this software. With MpcReader you could store the orbital data on your pc for all software packages available on the MPC site and it also converts plain MPC data to the format needed for KStars.

Someone could fetch orbital data for:

    * Observable comets
    * Observable critical-list numbered minor planets
    * Observable distant minor planets (including Centaurs and transneptunians)
    * Observable unusual minor planets (including NEOs)
    * Bright minor planets at opposition (current year)

Data is available for this software packages:

    * MPC format
    * SkyMap (SkyMap Software)
    * Guide (Project Pluto)
    * xephem (E. Downey)
    * Home Planet (J. Walker)
    * MyStars! (Relative Data Products)
    * TheSky (Software Bisque)
    * Starry Night (Sienna Software)
    * Deep Space (D. S. Chandler)
    * PC-TCS (D. Harvey)
    * Earth Centered Universe (Nova Astronomics)
    * Dance of the Planets (ARC)
    * MegaStar V4.x (E.L.B. Software)
    * SkyChart III (Southern Stars Software)
    * Voyager II (Carina Software)
    * SkyTools (CapellaSoft)
    * Autostar (Meade Instruments)

and finally for KStars.

You can download MpcReader at https://sourceforge.net/projects/mpcreader/

Make a directory and unpack the files in this newly created directory.
e. g:

cd ~
mkdir mpcreader
cd mpcreader
unzip mpcreader.zip
or
tar xvzf mpcreader.tar.gz


Fetching and converting data is very simple. Here some sample command lines (there are some bash-scripts in the ZIP-file someone could use and alter for personal preferences;) ):

Simple command line help.
java -jar mpcreader.jar --help

Simple command line for obtaining comets from MPC-website and storing data in kstars format.
Verbose output and no modification of the output file name.
Use it and you should end with a file named 'SoftCmt.txt' in the same directory.
(if you have an active internet connection)
java -jar mpcreader.jar

Same as above. But here we get orbital data for bright minor planets.
See http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/iau/Ephemerides/Soft00.html
java -jar mpcreader.jar --type:1 --verbose:false

Same as above. But here we get orbital data for bright minor planets and comets .
java -jar mpcreader.jar --type:0,1 --verbose:false --split:true

Same as above. But here we get all data from MPC site (comet data and asteroids data).
KStars data is stored in two separate files ('comets.dat' and 'asteroids.dat').
java -jar mpcreader.jar --type:all --verbose:false --output:comets.dat,asteroids.dat

Same as above. But here the data is stored in single files.
(SoftCmt.txt,SoftBright.txt,SoftCritList.txt,SoftDistant.txt,SoftUnusual.txt)
java -jar mpcreader.jar --type:all --verbose:false --split:true

Simple command line for obtaining raw data from MPC-website.
Mpc data is stored in two separate files ('comets.dat' and 'asteroids.dat').
(If you have an active internet connection).
java -jar mpcreader.jar --type:all --soft:0 --verbose:false

Same as above. But here the data is stored in single files.
(Soft00Cmt.txt,Soft00Bright.txt,Soft00CritList.txt,Soft00Distant.txt,Soft00Unusual.txt).
java -jar mpcreader.jar --type:all --soft:0 --verbose:false --split:true

Simple command line for obtaining data from raw MPC-data files.
KStars data is stored in two separate files ('comets.dat' and 'asteroids.dat').
java -jar mpcreader.jar --soft:kstarsA --input:Soft00Cmt.txt,Soft00Bright.txt,Soft00CritList.txt,Soft00Distant.txt,Soft00Unusual.txt --output:comets.dat,asteroids.dat --verbose:false

Same as above. But here the data is stored in single files.
(SoftCmt.txt,SoftBright.txt,SoftCritList.txt,SoftDistant.txt,SoftUnusual.txt)
java -jar mpcreader.jar --soft:kstarsA --input:Soft00Cmt.txt,Soft00Bright.txt,Soft00CritList.txt,Soft00Distant.txt,Soft00Unusual.txt --split:true --verbose:false

Simple command line for obtaining data from MPC-website and storing it in THE SKY format.
Verbose output and no modification of the output file name.
Use it and you should end with a file named 'Soft06Cmt.txt' in the same directory
(If you have an active internet connection)
java -jar mpcreader.jar --soft:thesky

Same as above. But here we get all data from MPC site (comet data and asteroids data).
THESKY data is stored in two separate files ('comets.dat' and 'asteroids.dat').
java -jar mpcreader.jar --type:all --soft:thesky --verbose:false --output:comets.dat,asteroids.dat

Same as above. But here the data is stored in single files.
(Soft06Cmt.txt,Soft06Bright.txt,Soft06CritList.txt,Soft06Distant.txt,Soft06Unusual.txt).
java -jar mpcreader.jar --type:all --soft:guide --verbose:false --split:true

Please email all questions, suggestions, bugs to jeamydotleeatgmaildotcom