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IAU Minor Planet Center

Minor Planet Center

The MPC Orbit (MPCORB) Database

IMPORTANT NOTE: Please download the MPCORB database from the mirror site. The links on this page have not been updated since Feb. 12.

The MPC Orbit (MPCORB) database contains orbital elements of minor planets that have been published in the Minor Planet Circulars, the Minor Planet Orbit Supplement and the Minor Planet Electronic Circulars.

MPCORB is available for free downloading from the anon-ftp link below:

ftp://cfa-ftp.harvard.edu/pub/MPCORB/

Download either the complete file or daily updates.

If your browser does not reach the above link, try:

ftp://cfa-ftp.harvard.edu/

and then navigate manually to the "pub" directory and then to the "MPCORB" directory. Some browsers apparently cannot cope with a directory specification in a ftp-style URL.

Please note the following important information:

  • Note that the security features used in this ftp server require that your machine be found in a "reverse DNS lookup" in order to access this site. A number of ISPs do not properly DNS-register their IP addresses: attempts at access from such ISPs will fail. You should complain to your ISP if your machine cannot access this ftp server.
  • You must also ensure that you have set your anonymous ftp password in your browser. This password must contain the "@" character. It is standard practice to use your e-mail address (or something that looks a valid e-mail address) as your anonymous ftp password. The default values for this setting in browsers such as Netscape and Mozilla will NOT work.
  • You can verify your IP address here: if your IP address passes this test and you can't access the site and your anonymous ftp password is valid, you should contact the CfA web admin (use the link at the bottom of this page).
  • Some browsers may present you with a username/password box. If this occurs, use "anonymous" as the username and your e-mail address as the password.
If you still cannot access our site, you will have to access the database via one of the mirror sites (see next section for details).

Information on the format of the elements is available via the Documentation page.

Mirror Sites

Mirror sites of the MPCORB datafiles (updated by the MPC) are available as follows:
  • Czech Astronomical Society, Czech Republic
    • http access at http://mpcorb.astro.cz.
    • ftp access is at ftp.astro.cz: login with username "mpcorb" and password "Ceres".
    • This site is an exception to the anon-ftp requirement.
We would like to set up further mirrors of the MPCORB datafiles in order to achieve good geographical distribution. If you are interested in hosting a mirror, please read this.

Other mirror sites of the MPCORB datafiles (updated by third parties from the MPC site) are available as follows:

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