Confirmations for (most of) December 2023
I normally do these one full month at a time, but since we are getting close to SOHO-5000, I am trying to stay on top of it all.
Soho# Date/Time of Post Discoverer Tel Group Images of... ===================================================================== 4941 Dec01,23 02:48:03 J.Ruan C3,C2 Kreutz Dec01-02,23 4942 Dec01,23 21:44:49 H.Tan C2 Kreutz Dec01-02,23 4943 Dec02,23 14:51:07 Z.Xu C3,C2 Kreutz Dec02-03,23 4944 Dec02,23 15:52:33 H.Tan C2 Kreutz Dec02-03,23 4945 Dec03,23 10:03:36 H.Tan C2 Kreutz Dec03,23 4946 Dec07,23 00:10:50 J.Ruan C2 Kreutz Dec06-07,23 4947 Dec08,23 23:39:57 J.Ruan C2 Kreutz Dec09,23 4948 Dec09,23 06:21:00 J.Ruan C2 NonGrp Dec09,23 4949 Dec09,23 15:15:10 J.Ruan C3,C2A,C2 Kreutz Dec09-12,23 4950 Dec09,23 17:08:04 J.Ruan C2 Kreutz Dec09-10,23 4951 Dec10,23 23:31:43 J.Ruan C2 Kreutz Dec10-11,23 4952 Dec11,23 05:24:56 J.Ruan C2 Kreutz Dec11,23 4953 Dec11,23 18:54:28 J.Ruan C2 Kreutz Dec11,23 4954 Dec11,23 21:53:05 J.Ruan C2 Kreutz Dec12,23 4955 Dec14,23 10:28:43 J.Ruan C3,C2 Kreutz Dec14-15,23 4956 Dec16,23 04:57:23 J.Ruan C2 Kreutz Dec15-16,23 4957 Dec17,23 04:29:21 J.Ruan C2 Kreutz Dec16-17,23 4958 Dec17,23 13:26:43 J.Ruan C3,C2 Kreutz Dec17,23 4959 Dec17,23 13:26:43 J.Ruan C2 Kreutz Dec18,23 4960 Dec22,23 05:14:41 W.Boonplod C2 Meyer Dec22,23 --
This does not include Zesheng's Kreutz discovery today which is certainly real, and will be SOHO-4961. I want to wait until we have all the data for it though, and that is a couple of days away.
I will take this final opportunity to remind you to send any archive SOHO reports you have. At the end of this month I will look at those, but will then not do any more archive comets until after SOHO-5000. Right now I just have one archive comet from Qicheng Zhang.
As is usually the case, NASA like to publicize events like SOHO-5000 -- and I am delighted that they do so! This increased publicity usually brings a lot of new reports and 'NEW USERS' to the project, many of whom are completely fresh to this kind of work. As you all know, Sungrazer is a very challenging project, so it can be very difficult for newcomers to get established. So please be understanding of new people that post noise or duplicate reports of known comets. I will try and add names to the "NEW USER" reports where possible, but sometimes the contributors do not send their name with the report, and there is nothing I can do. But I would ask that you all please keep an eye on reports from new participants and just check to see if the report is in fact a "real" comet. (There are a small number of you whose first ever sungrazer report was a new comet, so it can and does happen!)
On a separate subject, the 2024 transits list is now available on the site. A big "thank you" to Worachate once again for providing the excellent graphic and data. The transits list is one of the most popular pages on the Sungrazer website, so it's greatly appreciated by many people! Regarding the transits next year, it will be very interesting to see how C/2023 A3 develops in the coming months. There is the potential for it to be extremely bright but, as always, it is far too early to make a prediction about an incoming low-q Oort Cloud comet. It may not even exist by October 2024! We shall see...
Finally, a huge "THANK YOU" to every one of you who has contributed to the project this year -- even if you haven't made a discovery. Sungrazer continues to be one of the most unique, and uniquely successful, citizen science projects ever created. I am pleased to say that it is almost certain that next year the backlog of undesignated SOHO comets will be officially published, along with orbital elements and appropriate credits to all of you who found the comets! I truly cannot wait for that to happen!
For those of you that celebrate at this time of year, I wish you Happy Holidays, and I wish all of you a wonderful New Year and many successes (cometary or otherwise!) for 2024!
Karl