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Comet Search Document

The Comet Search Document allows you to search your favorite comets by using a variety of search properties and produce a tabular report. Times are accurate for the observer's location. Times and equatorial position values and are given in the format selected in Preferences.

The Comet Search document is best to use when:

▪you don't know which comets match your search criteria

▪you want the best times to view comets

The Comet Ephemeris document is best to use when:

▪you know which comet(s) you want an ephemeris for

▪you want motion over time data for comet(s)

Information about the Comet Search Report

The document contains three adjustable panes.

▪The document settings pane allows you to specify the search criteria and how the ephemeris calculations are done.

▪The lower left report pane displays the results of the most recent search and claculations.

▪The lower right detail pane displays graphical and extended textual information for the selected object.

Document Settings Pane

Document settings are grouped logically into 7 tabbed pages. When a filter tab has at least one filter set that excludes any objects from a report, the tab area shows the [] filtered icon. This helps you identify at a glance any filter settings that are applied when the database is searched.

Quick links to the tabs follow:

Report Pane

Search initiates the search and ultimately produces a report. The status of the search and creation of the report are shown while these tasks are being performed. You can terminate the report by pressing the Cancel button in the status box.

Clear allows you to erase the report text. Report text is automatically erased before a new report is created.

Fit Columns and Show Columns provide control over report content and layout. These functions are discussed in Working with Reports.

Help allows you to open online help to this page.

A recessed status box appears beside the Help button. It shows the number of comets included in the search result. If the text in the status box is grayed then the settings in the document have been changed and the report has not been refreshed by Search.

Get DSS Images opens the DSS Download Status dialog box where you can use the Smart DSS Download™ feature. Please see DSS Download Status for details.

Clicking in the title bar of one of the columns sorts the data by that column; clicking again in the same column toggles the sort order between ascending and descending order. You can sort by multiple columns by using Shift-click - see Working with Reports for more information.

Comet Search Report contains the report text that results from the most recent search. Click here to see a description of the Comet Search report. The text in the report can be scrolled horizontally and vertically by using cursor keys or by clicking the scroll bars.

The report window has a context menu that can be accessed by right clicking in the window. The context menu contains:

▪name of the object

▪object-specific functions

▪Preferences

▪Report Style Browser

Detail Pane

The Detail Pane is a multi-tabbed pane that contains graphical or extended textual content for a selected object. Currently, these tabbed pages include:

What about?

Performance of the Comet Search document depends on the number of favorite comets. An ephemeris must be calculated for each comet before search criteria can be applied, so you can improve overall performance by using the Orbital Elements Manager to limit the number of favorite comets.

Because the report can be very wide, you can adjust the width of columns - see Working with Reports. These adjustments work for viewing and printing. Note that printouts may have adjacent columns of data printed over one another if your column adjustments are too narrow. You can check for that problem with File | Print Preview.

Additional Information:

▪Accuracy of comet ephemeris calculations

▪Saving a report to CSV

▪Saving a report to HTML

▪Saving a report to Text

▪Printing a document

▪Saving a document

▪Setting default values for a new comet search document

▪Comet Search document speed button can be placed on your tool bar so that you can create a comet search document instantly.