Hi All,

Later than planned, but here are all confirmations as of today. (I am assuming there won't be another 'January' comet discovered in the next few hours...)

5148  Nov30,24 21:04:48   J.Ruan        C3,C2    Kreutz  Dec01,24
5149  Dec01,24 10:28:48   E.Banach        C2     Kreutz  Dec01,24
5150  Dec01,24 11:21:40   Z.Xu          C3,C2    Kreutz  Dec01-02,24
5151  Dec01,24 13:10:52   E.Banach        C2     Kreutz  Dec01,24
5152  Dec02,24 04:27:40   E.Banach        C2     Kreutz  Dec02,24
5153* Dec02,24 10:27am    Yang,Boonplod   C2     Kreutz  Dec02,24
5154  Dec02,24 19:06:36   J.Ruan        C3,C2    Kreutz  Dec02-03,24
5155* Dec03,24 06:16am    M.Kaszczyk      C2     Kreutz  Dec03,24
5156  Dec03,24 11:01:27   Z.Yang          C2     Kreutz  Dec03,24
5157  Dec03,24 22:27:40   W.Boonplod      C2     Kreutz  Dec03-04,24
5158  Dec06,24 00:28:48   E.Banach        C2     Kreutz  Dec06,24
5159  Dec06,24 03:31:29   J.Ruan          C2     Kreutz  Dec06,24
5160  Dec08,24 12:06:52   E.Banach        C2     Kreutz  Dec08,24
5161  Dec12,24 22:47:56   Z.Xu          C3,C2    Kreutz  Dec12-13,24
5162  Dec18,24 19:08:59   H.Tan         C3,C2    Kreutz  Dec18-19,24
5163  Dec21,24 12:35:36   H.Tan         C3,C2    Kreutz  Dec21-22,24
5164  Dec23,24 20:01:41   H.Tan         C3,C2    Kreutz  Dec24-25,24
5165  Dec25,24 16:11:06   H.Tan         C3,C2    Kreutz  Dec25-26,24   
5166  Dec29,24 08:30:18   W.Boonplod      C2     Kreutz  Dec29,24
5167  Dec30,24 11:44:07   Z.Xu          C3,C2    Kreutz  Dec30-31,24
5168  Dec30,24 21:32:33   Z.Xu            C2     Kreutz  Dec31,24
5169  Jan01,25 09:47:25   Z.Xu          C3,C2    Kreutz  Jan01,25
5170  Jan03,25 02:07:26   J.Ruan        C3,C2    Kreutz  Jan03,25
5171  Jan13,25 02:12:09   J.Ruan          C3     Kreutz  Jan13,25
5172  Jan15,25 18:42:11   W.Boonplod      C3     Kreutz  Jan15,25
5173  Jan21,25 16:58:07   W.Boonplod      C3     Kreutz  Jan21,25
5174  Jan22,25 19:42:56   J.Ruan          C3     Kreutz  Jan22,25
5175  Jan25,25 04:08:19   J.Ruan        C3,C2    Meyer   Jan25,25
5176  Jan27,25 19:34:24   R.Pickard       C3     Kreutz  Jan27,25
--  

5153 = MSG 5878
5155 = MSG 5886

There is a report (# 5884) on the chat group from Yanxi Li that I cannot confirm. I do not see anything at all at, or near, the given positions. If I am missing something, please email me and let me know. I also cannot confirm Trygve's report from Dec08,24, and Jiangao's C3 report from Dec28,24. Finally, Worachate's report from Jan13,25 was the same comet as Jiangao reported earlier that day (#5171).

Project Statistics

It has been a while since I updated this, so now seems to be a good time. Last year, there were 186 new SOHO comet discoveries, which is actually the fewest we have had since 2009! Though I should note that in 2016 there were 187 discoveries, so that's a statistical tie.

Here's a simple bar chart showing the annual discoveries since the SOHO mission started:

In the very early mission (1998-2001), the data was very 'uneven', with lots of different data rates and image sizes. This made it harder to find comets. That improved a little around 2002. Then in 2012, SOHO changed its operating mode, and LASCO gained extra images. That led to an obvious increase in discoveries, mostly because the faintest C2 comets could now be seen in 5+ images and thus could be confirmed. Otherwise, the numbers have remained very consistent over the past few years. I know it looks like there's a slight downward trend over the past few years, but I don't know that we can read too much into that. I think we would expect variations like this with such an extended debris stream as we see with the Kreutz group. I would want to watch these statistics for 20-30 years before reading too much into them.

In terms of relative percentages of each comet type, the breakdown has not changed much. The discoveries break down as:

• Kreutz: 85.2%
• Meyer: 7.0%
• Kracht: 1.0%
• KrachtII: 0.3%
• Marsden: 1.5%
• Non-Group: 5.0%

The Kreutz comets of course still dominate, but the Meyer group is a substantial portion of the project discoveries. So once I again I will take the opportunity to thank all of you for your continued contributions to this incredibly valuable, and entirely unique, astronomical data set! You are all part of an amazing team effort, and it continues to be a privilege for me to be a part of your team, and to work with you all.

As always, please email me with questions, comments, complaints, concerns, etc.

Karl