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23 May 2001
This is more like it, found SOHO-316 today, only to be a bit slow reporting on SOHO-317 which Kazimieras Cernis discovered, this followed on behind. Yesterday Doug Biesecker found SOHO-315. All these are Kreutz comets and are very similar in appearance and position in LASCO C2 images.
21 May 2001
I was beginning to wonder where all the comets had gone May being quite a good month then along came SOHO-314. I found this in C2 image on May 19, quite condensed and appeard in 11 images. I then checked the C3 data and found the comet in there as well, in another 14 images. 2001-K19
14 May 2001
A comet I found and reported on May 6 2001 has now been confirmed, this is SOHO 312. 2001-J35
I have produced a page with 12 plots, one for each month showing the path of most of the SOHO comets as they appear in LASCO C2 images. This can be used as an aid show where in the images the comets are most likely to be found. They also show the best time of year for finding comets. The page should print on an A4 sheet.
23 April 2001
All four comets now have official designations: on MPEC 2001-H32
C/2001 H1 (SOHO) (M. Oates)
C/2001 H2 (SOHO) (X. Leprette, T. Scarmato)
C/2001 H3 (SOHO) (X. Leprette)
C/2001 H4 (SOHO) (X. Leprette)
All are members of the Kreutz group.
22 April 2001
April 20 was quite a day! A total of 4 realtime comets in C2 were found, one by myself the others by Xavier Leprette. It started when I downloaded a batch of files in the afternoon, when I saw a bright comet in the C2 images together with a fainter comet following on a short distance away. I checked the recent reports and found that Xavier had already reported the bright comet, but no mention of the fainter one. So I made a position measurement and posted my report, but I was too slow, both Xavier and Toni Scarmato had beat me to it. Then straight away I saw another medium brightess comet that was much further to the right and a couple of hours before. I reported this and this time I was first. And if that was not enough a short time after Xavier reported another faint comet following on behind the previous two he had reported, unfortunatly I was unable to download the images for some reason the page kept timing out. :(
This is the first time so many comets have been seen so close together. All these have yet to be officially designated.
11 April 2001
The comet I reported for 21 March 2001 has not been accepted, although it could be real, there is not sufficient data to prove it.
But I have made some other reports recently that have been accepted...
I found amongst the noise on C2 images yesterday a real time comet, this is quite faint and diffuse with no tail evident. This is SOHO-304
I also reported a pair of comets in archive data from 7 Nov. 1998, unfortunately the smaller object does not have enough data points to confirm so only one is being designated (but again it could well be real), this is SOHO-302. The way I found this pair? is quite amusing. This was my report...
This is a serendipitous discovery.I am writing an article and as part of this I am cataloguing
all the twin/multiple comets found with SOHO. There were some
comets for which I did not have the images for, so I downloaded
them, and while looking for the twin comets of 1998/11/07;
C/1998 V2 (SOHO-252) and C/1998 V3 (SOHO-253) discovered by
X.Leprette, I found quite by chance, a another double comet.This pair are very close, the fainter one following on immediately
behind the first, slightly brighter one. Both are faint and
diffuse with no tails evident. They precede the known comets by
a short time, the known comets are in image 22037744.fts0,0 in bottom left corner of 1024x1024 images.First comet
Image Col Row Time Date
22037740.fts 703 17 05:18:05.618 1998/11/07
22037741.fts 679 44 05:54:05.997 1998/11/07
22037742.fts 662 64 06:18:05.783 1998/11/07
22037743.fts 639 89 06:50:07.065 1998/11/07
22037744.fts 617 117 07:25:31.844 1998/11/07 Position uncertain
Second comet (right behind the first)
Image Col Row Time Date
22037740.fts 707 12 05:18:05.618 1998/11/07
22037741.fts 681 40 05:54:05.997 1998/11/07
22037742.fts 667 59 06:18:05.783 1998/11/07
22037743.fts 646 85 06:50:07.065 1998/11/07
22037744.fts --- --- 07:25:31.844 1998/11/07Michael Oates30 Mar 2001
The non-sungrazer from March 15 has been given a designation - C/2001 E1 see MPEC 2000-F52 for details. (SOHO-298)
29 Mar 2001
Although not anounced yet, I discovered a non-sungrazer on March 15 in 4 C2 GIF images, this may not have been enough for the confirmation, but a further 3 images arrived a few days later. This comet appears to be in a very similar path to SOHO-103, but no orbit has been calculated yet.
I am also awaiting confirmation of a possible sungrazer found in C2 realtime images on March 21. This was only seen in 4 images from 11:50 to 12:50 UT.
18 Feb 2001
The latest comet has been confirmed in M.P.E.C. 2001-D07
COMET C/2001 C5 (SOHO)
Orbital elements:
C/2001 C5 (SOHO)
T 2001 Feb. 13.29 TT Marsden
q 0.0256 (2000.0) P Q
Peri. 51.27 +0.03545 -0.98887
Node 322.52 -0.97470 -0.06613
e 1.0 Incl. 166.26 -0.22069 +0.13325
From 32 observations 2001 Feb. 13-14.Ephemeris:
C/2001 C5 (SOHO)
Date TT R.A.(2000) Decl. Delta r Elong. Phase m1 m2
2001 02 10 22 26.40 -12 57.9 1.011 0.221 12.6 77.5
2001 02 11 22 17.53 -13 01.3 1.021 0.170 9.5 73.7
2001 02 12 22 06.46 -13 07.6 1.029 0.111 5.8 64.7
2001 02 13 21 49.71 -13 20.9 1.025 0.040 0.8 19.5
2001 02 14 21 44.29 -13 10.5 0.922 0.070 1.5 158.3
2001 02 15 21 56.65 -12 31.5 0.852 0.136 0.6 175.7
2001 02 16 22 10.70 -11 45.6 0.803 0.191 3.1 163.8
2001 02 17 22 25.60 -10 53.8 0.765 0.240 5.9 155.2
2001 02 18 22 41.13 -09 56.2 0.734 0.286 8.8 148.0
2001 02 19 22 57.13 -08 53.4 0.711 0.328 11.9 141.6
2001 02 20 23 13.46 -07 45.9 0.693 0.367 15.1 135.5
2001 02 21 23 29.97 -06 34.5 0.679 0.405 18.3 129.8
2001 02 22 23 46.50 -05 20.5 0.671 0.441 21.6 124.3
2001 02 23 00 02.88 -04 04.8 0.667 0.476 24.9 118.9
2001 02 24 00 18.97 -02 48.8 0.667 0.510 28.1 113.8
2001 02 25 00 34.65 -01 33.6 0.670 0.543 31.2 108.9
2001 02 26 00 49.80 -00 20.2 0.677 0.575 34.2 104.2
2001 02 27 01 04.34 +00 50.5 0.688 0.606 37.1 99.8
2001 02 28 01 18.22 +01 57.9 0.701 0.636 39.7 95.6
2001 03 01 01 31.39 +03 01.6 0.716 0.665 42.2 91.6
2001 03 02 01 43.84 +04 01.2 0.734 0.694 44.4 87.815 Feb 2001
Yet to be offically confirmed, but I found a bright condenced object traveling from right to left in LASCO C2 images yesterday.
I had to make some checks to see if this was a planet or minor planet before reporting as it looked unusual, but after closer inspection of the images, and further images downloaded, it was quite apparent that it was a comet. A non-Kreutz sungrazer in rather an unusual orbit very close to the ecliptic, i.e. low inclination. For a while I thought it may pass the Sun, but alas, it faded as it got closer to the Sun.
This should be SOHO-297.
9 Feb 2001
M. Oates has reported his discovery of an apparent Kreutz sungrazing comet
in LASCO C2 images. This comet was visible in images from Feb 8, 2001.
The comet was not evident in a preliminary inspection of the LASCO C3
images. The apparent position angle of this comet was such that the pylon
holding the C3 occulter most likely obscured the comet. Preliminary
measurements of the positions are given at the end of this e-mail.COMMENT: COMET SOHO-295
HEIGHT DATE TIME ANGLE TEL FC COL ROW
7.84 2001/02/08 04:54:06 131.0 C2 10 18.0 75.0
7.21 2001/02/08 05:30:38 130.8 C2 10 58.0 112.0
6.80 2001/02/08 05:54:06 130.6 C2 10 83.0 136.0
6.58 2001/02/08 06:06:05 130.6 C2 10 97.0 149.0
Positions by Douglas Biesecker - Emergent Information Technologies, Inc.This is my 112th discovery !
5 Feb 2001
Found my second realtime comet this year. This one is much brighter than SOHO-292 and was found further away from the Sun in C3 images. This was only just visible in C2 images having got much fainter as it got closer to the Sun. I had a short tail, and later on developed a long narrow tail.
This comet is SOHO-293
24 Jan 2001
Found a real-time comet in C3 images today, this was quite a way out from the Sun. This is SOHO-292 and my 110th comet.
COMMENT: COMET SOHO-292
HEIGHT DATE TIME ANGLE TEL FC COL ROW
20.31 2001/01/24 09:18:05 119.9 C3 10 207.0 352.0
19.97 2001/01/24 09:42:05 119.9 C3 10 212.0 355.0
19.42 2001/01/24 10:42:09 119.4 C3 10 219.0 362.0
19.01 2001/01/24 11:18:05 119.3 C3 10 225.0 366.0
16.30 2001/01/24 15:42:05 117.6 C3 10 262.0 397.0
15.79 2001/01/24 16:18:05 117.2 C3 10 269.0 403.0
15.51 2001/01/24 16:42:05 117.0 C3 10 273.0 406.0
Positions by Douglas Biesecker - Emergent Information Technologies, Inc.21 Jan 2001
After re-checking C2 data (GIF images) from the period Feb to July 2000 inc. I found 6 more confirmed comets.
It is quite amazing that these were missed, even with a few people looking, including myself!
08 Jan 2001
M. Oates has reported his discovery of a comet in the SOHO/LASCO
C2 images from Dec 25, 2000 (our first true, Christmas
Day comet). He
actually reported this comet on Dec 26th, but we could not verify the
comet in all of the images he claimed, so further work was required on my
part. I give below the preliminary position measurements for this comet.
This makes the current tally of SOHO comets 281.
HEIGHT DATE TIME ANGLE TEL FC COL ROW 7.66 2000/12/25 02:54:05 128.4 C2 11 9.0 106.0 7.56 2000/12/25 03:06:06 127.9 C2 11 13.0 116.0 7.37 2000/12/25 03:30:05 127.2 C2 11 21.0 132.0 7.15 2000/12/25 03:54:05 126.2 C2 11 30.0 152.0 7.02 2000/12/25 04:06:05 126.3 C2 11 39.0 158.0Thats no. 103
102 - slowing down a bit now!!
As I am doing very little searching of archive data, the number of comets found recently has dropped a great deal. The number now is 102 with one or two awaiting confirmation.
I have done it, found my 100th SOHO comet!!!!
The amount of data left in the archive is getting very small, with little chance of finding many more, so I am turning more effort over to the real time comets of which my 100th was one. It was found yesterday (27 Nov 2000) in the real time LASCO C2 images from 0654UT-0954.. This was a tricky one to spot as there have been a few CME's recently leaving the image peppered with noise.
Found 5 more another archive sungrazers this weekend, all from October 1997 in C2 images. All these need to be confirmed.
Found 2 more another archive sungrazers, from 14 Nov 1999. SOHO-216 & 15 Nov 1999. SOHO-217
Found another archive sungrazer, this time from 8 Nov 1999. SOHO-215
Wow! just like a few months ago, I have found 4 more comets in 2 days!. Three are archive comets from October 1999, 27, 29 & 30th The fourth was a real time comet on the 25 October 2000. All are from the C2 instrument.
SOHO-211: 27 Oct 1999
SOHO-212: 29 Oct 1999
SOHO-213: 30 Oct 1999
SOHO-214: 25 Oct 2000
It's been quite a while since I discovered a real time comet as I have been concentrating on the archive images. But I found on on the 21 Oct, an apparent Kreutz sungrazing comet and was visible in 6 frames on LASCO C2 images
SOHO-208
It took me a while but I have found another one :) It was visible in 5 frames on LASCO C2 images
C/1999 U6 (SOHO)
Orbital elements: Comet T q e Peri. Node Incl. C CJ99U060 1999 Oct. 18.27 0.0055 1.0 81.51 2.23 144.17 M
This was yet another archive find from 11 April 1997 which I searched on 18 Aug 2000. This is quite a bright condensed comet with a small tail, and can be seen on 10/11 images, from 04:14 to 08:40 UT
A few web pages that feature my discoveries...
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