Note: After installing a new comet or asteroid file, execute the "Compute All Comets" and/or "Compute All Asteroids" functions before accessing the new data.

Comet Data
Updated comet elements for MegaStar can be downloaded from http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/Ephemerides/SoftwareEls.html.
If you are running V4.x of MegaStar, simply download the file into the MegaStar working directory (naming it "comet.txt").
If you are running V3.x, you will need to download the MegaStar File Conversion Utility (see below).

Asteroid Data
MegaStar uses asteroid elements from Dr. Ted Bowell of Lowell Observatory. You can download the raw data file from ftp://ftp.lowell.edu/pub/elgb.
The file is "astorb.dat.gz". You will need to decompress this file using gzip.exe (included with MegaStar, and also available from www.gzip.org).
For more information, refer to the file "astrddoc.txt" in the \docs directory of the MegaStar V4.0 CD-ROM. Ignore the references to the "convastd" utility. Instead, you will need to convert the file to MegaStar's format using the MegaStar File Conversion Utility (see below).

MegaStar File Conversion Utility (mconvert.exe)
NOTE: This utility is not needed for MegaStar V5 or higher.
Use this utility to convert the raw Lowell asteroid data for use with V3.x or V4.x of MegaStar. It will also convert the IAU comet file (which is already in MegaStar V4.x format) for use with V3.x of MegaStar. When you run this utility, click on Help for instructions.
This program is compressed. After downloading, open "mconvert.zip" using a program like PKZIP to extract the executable (msconvert.exe). Next, using Windows Explorer or the Windows Run run the extracted executable (msconvert.exe).
Download the MegaStar File Conversion Utility now

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Copyright © 2002 by Willmann-Bell, Inc.