2025 MAY 31

In this month’s issue:

1. MPC User Group Meeting

2. MPC Publications - Users’ feedback

3. MPC Explorer: dual status designations list

4. Observatory codes table

1. MPC User Group Meeting

The MPC User Group Meeting (MUG) took place on May 20 and 21, 2025 at the Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge (MA). We would like to thank our user group representatives for taking the time to report to us the community feedback and for their constructive suggestions. We would also like to thank our users for taking the time to send valuable feedback to the MUG members. The MPC is glad to see that the community is understanding all the efforts that we make in improving our current system while getting ready for the future challenges. For those of you who are not familiar with the MUG or would like more information, please visit the MPC User Group Page maintained by SBN.

2. MPC Publications - Users’ feedback

The MPC’s official publications comprise five main products: (1) Minor Planet Electronic Circulars (MPECs); (2) Daily Orbit Update (DOU); (3) Mid-month Minor Planet Supplements (MPS); (4) Monthly Minor Planet Circulars (MPCs); (5) Observations and orbits of comets. The publications and their content is explained in detail in our February 2025 Newsletter.

There is an ongoing effort at the MPC to improve the current publications schema. With the support from the MPC User Group, we are now seeking feedback from our users to better understand which MPC products are most valuable to the community and to ensure that key information is accessible through our replicated MPC database tables or related APIs on the MPC website. The feedback form will remain open until June 30, 2025. Results will be summarized and shared in the August Newsletter. (The image is generated with DALL-E).

The Google form is available at this link:

MPC publications

The MPC’s official publications comprise five main products: 1. Minor Planet Electronic Circulars (MPECs), including: a. Single object MPECs; b. Daily Orbit Update MPECs (DOU); c. Observations and orbits of comets MPECs; 2. Mid-month Minor Planet Supplements (MPS); 3. Monthly Minor Planet Circulars (MPCs). We are asking for feedback from our users to get a clear understanding of what MPC products are used and needed by our community and to make sure that the corresponding information ...

We strongly encourage you to complete the form, your input is extremely valuable and will greatly help the MPC in serving the community.

Your feedback is completely anonymous.

3. MPC Explorer: dual status designations list

We are continuing to expand our list options, now including a dedicated dual status designations list.

Dual status designations refer to objects that were initially given a minor planet designation and number, but were later assigned a comet designation due to observed activity. For these objects, all observations and orbital information remain available under their minor planet designation.

Please note: If a minor planet was not yet numbered and subsequently displayed cometary activity, we convert its designation to a comet format by adding a “P/” or “C/” prefix to the minor planet designation. In such cases, observations and orbits are available only under the new comet designation.

4. Obscodes table

In our April 2025 Newsletter we have introduced the new Observatory codes API. Like all other APIs developed and published by the MPC, the Observatory Codes API retrieves its data directly from our internal PostgreSQL database.

As explained in multiple newsletters, but in particular in our April 2024 and February 2025 Newsletters, the majority of MPC data is stored in PostgreSQL tables, which are replicated to our community via the Small Body Node.

Our Documentation page features a dedicated section on these Replicated tables, with an introduction on their usage, detailed schema descriptions (including known issues), and examples of useful queries.

The Obscodes table has now been added to the list of replicated tables available through the Small Body Node. A detailed schema description of the obscode table is included in our schema documentation.