I realize we are a little behind on confirmations of recent reports -- I'm working my way through those now. Other things have kept me very occupied for a few weeks now. But I promise you're not forgotten!

As I'm sure you're aware, comet C/2024 S1 (ATLAS) -- a bright Kreutz-group comet -- is on it's way to perihelion on Oct 28, and will enter LASCO C3 on Oct 26. There has been MUCH talk online about the comet possibly fragmenting, losing chunks, outbursting, or whatever. Depending on who you ask, you get different opinions. But what matters is that we will see something enter the C3 field of view on the 26th (14UT or so, I think).

One concern (fear!) I have always had with this project is that one day we would see a large cluster of fragments enter the field of view, and the reports page would just be swamped by dozens of reports of each and every fragment, with no one knowing who exactly saw what, and when. I do not know if S1 is going to be that comet or not, but the prospect is always there. If it does arrive with multiple fragments... well, I really do not know what to say! You can of course go ahead and report them, but if the entire astronomy world is seeing the same cluster of fragments at the same time in new data, it might not be fitting in that circumstance to single out any individual person as the "discoverer" of that chunk. So I don't know what I would do, but as always I will work something out. Just continue to do what you always do, and we will go from there!

One a different subject, you may have seen that the new "CCOR-1" coronagraph on NOAA GOES-19 is operating and returning fantastic images. Of course, I have access to the data, and have looked through it, and can tell you that Kreutz-group comets show up very well indeed. The limiting magnitude is certainly superior to LASCO C3, though the field of view is a little narrower. Nonetheless, when LASCO is finally retired, and this data comes online in real-time, I do believe CCOR will become the primary source for Sungrazer Project discoveries, particularly as it will return images every 15 minutes, 24 hours a day. I do not yet know the official timeline for when NOAA will start releasing the data, but my understanding is that it's maybe six months or so from now. (So that means I need to start working on updating the report form to accept CCOR reports....ugh!) Note also that a second CCOR ("CCOR-2") is scheduled to launch to L1 some time next year. There will be overlap in operations for LASCO, CCOR-1 and CCOR-2, so that will be particularly challenging for comet reports. Again, we can figure that out as we go.

As always, please reach out with questions, and let's hope for a great display from S1/ATLAS this weekend!

Karl