For a project of mine, I'm hoping to be able to find out the locations of several planets and other solar system bodies that we can't actually see with the unaided eye, and then calculate where they'll be in a few seasons and years. I have star charts made specifically for my latitude for each season, and I'm more than familiar with the equatorial coordinate system. But before I even get started on the project, I need to find the current equatorial coordinates of these bodies, and make sure I can see those coordinates at all from my location (so nothing in the southern hemisphere). For example, I know that at night at my location, Mars is currently in Leo, near Regulus. So the coordinates for Mars would be seemingly simple to find, as well as where it will be over the next 2 or so months until it sets at my latitude. I know that the coordinates change each day, so I'd have to do plenty of calculations. What I want to do is take something like Neptune, that I can't see, and find out what star or constellation it's currently near (or was near on a specific day and time) so I could put it on a chart and even shine a laser to that spot in the night sky and know it's there, even though I can't see it.
But I'm not just sticking to bodies that orbit neatly near the ecliptic, I want to calculate this for things in the Asteroid Belt and Kuiper Belt too. I'd especially love to be able to find where something like Sedna is and point to where it is in the sky right now.
So what I'm basically asking for is if anybody knows of a resource I can use to find out, ideally, where many bodies in the solar system are right now on the celestial sphere, or were during a recent day and time. But I'd be happy with just finding out what coordinates they were discovered at, so I can calculate where they are now, and will be in the near future. The more bodies I can find this out for the better.
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