Confirmations for December 2021, and year-end summary
Hi All,
The final set of confirmations for 2021:
Soho# Date/Time of Post Discoverer Tel Group Images of... ===================================================================== 4326 Dec01,21 02:03:53 Boonplod/Yang C3,C2 Kreutz Dec01,21 4327 Dec01,21 21:54:47 Z.Yang C2 Kreutz Dec01,21 4328 Dec03,21 11:14:15 W.Boonplod C3,C2 Kreutz Dec03,21 4329 Dec03,21 19:58:31 Z.Yang C2 Kreutz Dec04,21 4330 Dec05,21 02:14:26 Z.Yang H1,C3,C2 Kreutz Dec04-05,21 4331 Dec09,21 01:34:59 W.Boonplod H1,C3,C2 Kreutz Dec07-10,21 4332 Dec09,21 02:25:11 R.Pickard C2 Kreutz Dec09,21 4333 Dec10,21 17:44:30 R.Pickard C2 Kreutz Dec10-11,21 4334 Dec12,21 15:43:20 R.Pickard C3,C2 Kreutz Dec12-13,21 4335 Dec13,21 02:44:36 R.Pickard C2 Kreutz Dec13,21 4336 Dec16,21 17:10:58 W.Boonplod H1,C3,C2 Kreutz Dec16-17,21 4337 Dec17,21 14:13:19 S.Liwo C3,C2 Kreutz Dec17-18,21 4338 Dec17,21 21:44:48 W.Boonplod C3,C2 Kreutz Dec17-18,21 4339 Dec18,21 18:11:11 W.Boonplod C3,C2 Kreutz Dec18-19,21 4340 Dec23,21 07:03:06 W.Boonplod C3,C2 Kreutz Dec23-24,21 4341 Dec23,21 16:09:35 W.Boonplod C3,C2 Kreutz Dec23-25,21 4342 Dec24,21 02:27:40 Z.Yang C2 Kreutz Dec24,21 4343 Dec27,21 17:03:30 T.Prestgard C2 Kreutz Dec26-27,21
There were a couple of fragments reported close to SOHO-4326. I looked carefully at them and I understand why they were reported, but they look too much like a part of the comet's faint tail so I couldn't confirm them. I will work on archive reports next...
So that wraps up another highly successful year! It looks like we had 201 confirmed SOHO comets, which is perfectly in-line with previous years (203 in 2021, 200 in 2020, and 209 in 2019, for example). I'm sure that one or two archive comets will be found, as they always are. But still the numbers remain amazingly consistent year after year.
The contributions that you all make are hugely valuable and always appreciated, whether you have been with the Sungrazer Project for all of its twenty years or if you only just joined this past year. Speaking of which, I did want to specifically congratulate a few of the past year's comet discoverers:
- First, many congratulations to Robert Pickard, who only found his first comet in January 2021 and has since discovered over 30 comets (plus some archive reports I still need to check!).
- Second, congratulations to Rafal Biros, who found his first comet in 2020 at the age of 13 years old, and found ten more comets last year! This project has a history of inspiring young enthusiasts to pursue careers in astronomy and physical sciences, and I very much hope that this trend continues.
- Congratulations to Zesheng Yang, who made a couple of discoveries in 2015, then disappeared for a while, and returned this year to find 18 more comets -- it's good to see you back, Zesheng!
- Many congratulations to Peter Berrett, who has focused on archive comets and found a tremendous number of previously unreported non-group and Meyer-group comets. I'm a convinced that there is a great deal of science in the non-group comet archive, so these are really valuable discoveries.
- Finally, congratulations to Worachate Boonplod for again finding a huge number of new comets in 2021 (95, by my count!).
There are many others that have discovered comets this year, all of whom deserve congratulations and thanks too, particularly those of you (e.g. Jiangao Ruan, Masanori Uchina, Sergey Sherpakov, to name a few) that have been reporting/discovering comets for well over a decade now. But everyone who contributes, whether they find a new comet or not, is of course tremendously appreciated.
I look forward to another year full of surprising and exciting discoveries!
Karl