SOHO Comet Report Checker
I have written a simple Java applet that I use to check reports from the SOHO Comet Reports page.

When you fill in the reported position information and press the 'Stats' button, the applet will display a report...

This report contains:
- The position information you entered (so you can verify it, or copy it to the clipboard)
- The velocity of the object between each position (in pixels/hour and pixels/minute)
- The average velocity of the object from the first position to the last position (in pixels/hour and pixels/minute)
- A simple classification (noise, star, comet) of the object using a very basic heuristic
- Predicted positions every 10 minutes for the 3 hours after the last position
- Predicted positions every 10 minutes for the 3 hours before the first position
Notes
- You do not need to give 4 positions, 2 will suffice
- Co-ordinates are measured with (0,0) in the top-left, though you can choose to invert the X and Y axes to suit the given positions
- If the report uses the 512x512 images, then the '512x512' box must be ticked
- The 'C' buttons along the left-hand-side of each row will clear all data in that row
- You must choose either the C2 or C3 camera from the drop-down-box - this affects the heuristic
- You are free to use the data generated from this applet in any manner you wish
- I am working on a version that also gets the GIF images from the SOHO website, and crops them to 50x50 squares, centred on each reported position
Requirements
Java 1.4 (or better) must be installed on your system. You can download it from java.sun.com.
(Alternate link - choose the appropriate version of the JRE - it's about 8MB)
When you install Java, make sure you tick the box to install the Java plugin for your favourite web browser.
Applet
Click here to start loading the applet.
Contact
You can contact the author at: duncan@duncanjauncey.com
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