4/21/02 MASSIVE X-CLASS FLARE Region 9606 Proton Flux C2 C3 TRACE MPEG Radio Blackout

SOLAR HARPY DAILY NOTES The Dalliance of the Eagles by Walt Whitman Skirting the river road, (my forenoon walk, my rest,) Skyward in air a sudden muffled sound, the dalliance of the eagles, The rushing amorous contact high in space together, The clinching interlocking claws, a living, fierce, gyrating wheel, Four beating wings, two beaks, a swirling mass tight grappling, In tumbling turning clustering loops, straight downward falling, Till o'er the river pois'd, the twain yet one, a moment's lull, A motionless still balance in the air, then parting, talons loosing, Upward again on slow-firm pinions slanting, their separate divorce flight, She hers, he his, pursuing.

LIVE EVENT SOHO-LASCO C3

DAY ONE & TWO: Heads up from ORBIT reader

Date: 4/13/02 10:11:36 AM Pacific Daylight Time

From: HAARPMAN

http://lasco-www.nrl.navy.mil/current_mpg/current_c3.mpg look at highest res loop C3...object is coming in at Six PM moving left and up [contrary to movement of starfield]. LARGER ANIMATION  Public-published feeds have been periodically cut although data appears to be streaming from spacecraft  Email to NASA  Notes

EDITOR: Why oh why does NASA cut the feeds when something interesting is happening? Object appears to be getting bigger and brighter. Incoming? A tail-less comet? Ikeya-Zhang? Utsunomiya? Looks more like an asteroid or...rogue planet [wrong here after the fact]. SLEUTHS? [contact: webmaster@esa.nascom.nasa.gov]

ALL HELL BUSTIN LOOSE

DAY THREE: Some Confusion, but SOHO-Team names it and claims it. Kind of a dum astro-geek name, C/2002 G3 (SOHO) or SOHO-422.  I'd rather see it called, HAARPMAN'S HARPY, after the world's most powerful bird of prey, not to mention a possible co-founder, eh? So all loyal ORBITERS, tell your pals, it's called, HAARPMAN'S HARPY. We'll out-myth them, you know, in the Bardic, Lake Steadman style [Matter=MythC², hail to the Dreamers!]

YES, A REPLY

Date: 4/15/02 6:01:08 AM Pacific Daylight Time

From: Larry.Combs@noaa.gov

To: BARDSQUILL@aol.com

CC: Barbara.Poppe@noaa.gov, Viola.J.Raben@noaa.gov

Dear Kent,

Thank you for your contact. The object you show in your animation is probably a transit planet (I am looking at the white streak in the lower left of your gif). It is common to see a planet streak across between the spacecraft and the sun image.

As for the feeds from the SOHO, we do not have control of these. They are provided by the SOHO staff and sometimes have data gaps for various reasons.

Regards

Larry Combs

NOAA Space Environment Center

EDITOR:

Subj: Re: Unidentified object and live event on SOHO C3

Date: 4/15/02 8:01:53 AM Pacific Daylight Time

From: BARDSQUILL

To: Larry.Combs@noaa.gov

Thanks for your reply. I see none of Sol's known planets anywhere near that position. If a planet it is a rogue.

The SOHO team has returned the data feed. http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/realtime-c3-512.html

Emerging from behind armature shadow Why is object getting bigger?

Kent

CANDIDATE

Date: 4/15/02 8:08:48 AM Pacific Daylight Time

From: H.Isenberg@ping.de

Hi Kent, according to Maik Meyer from http://comethunter.de it is the new discovered comet C/2002 G3 (SOHO) http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/mpec/K02/K02G51.html

It was discovered on April 12, 02:45 I will try to enter the orbit parameters in a star chart program.

EDITOR: Important, we need the plot, to move from candidacy to solved. Bet a buck-fifty that the SOHO team spotted this on the C3 about when we did and named it. Still bears watching especially since it is growing, which indicates it MIGHT BE advancing rather than retreating--hard to say at this point. Looks though like it IS NEW [probable reason for feed cuts, to observe discreetly and claim the prize]! Hope it "torpedoes" into C2-range, would be quite a sight, might not though.

LOOKS CONFIRMED BUT WITH STRONG REASONS TO CONTINUE WATCH

Now Showing: Comet SOHO-42

On Apr. 12, 2002, X.-M. Zhou found a non-Kreutz comet in SOHO C3 real-time images. A first and preliminary orbit for comet C/2002 G3 (SOHO) indicates a perihelion on Apr. 17, 2002, at about 0.08 AU. The comet was about 8m at discovery and becomes slowly brighter as it crosses the C3 field of view. It might become observable from the ground in May (something that happened only with one SOHO comet - C/1998 J1 - until now) but then already faint and fading fast. This is SOHO's 421st new comet. (IAUC 7875, MPEC 2002-G51)

[Comets can be more than one nature, Bopp taught us that with it's strange composition, and I sometimes sense that the label, "Comet" is a catch-all phrase: ARCHIVES: The list of the killed astronomers and service men is on the homepage of the Plateau de Bure Observatory. Did you know, that they are famous for their research about Hale Bopp? Especially they found complex molecules on Hale Bopp never seen before?]

READERS: WATCH ON MPEG

Date: 4/15/02 12:42:35 PM Pacific Daylight Time

Kent, You're really onto something with this object near the sun. It's great to hear your actually getting replies from official sources instead of the usual silence. Although you have to really question how much they would be willing to say if it was something out of the ordinary. You're probably already aware of this as I type this Kent but just in case www.spaceweather.com is reporting

DAY FOUR: review and continue watch, Navy caught in the act, the Plot Thickens

Date: 4/16/02 12:43:55 AM Pacific Daylight Time Hi Kent! If you'll take a look at the SOHO archives, 4-15-02 07:42 to be precise, you see a long streak to the lower right of the image. I played around with it a bit, and saw something EXTREMELY interesting...one that you could reproduce for yourself. I cropped the image to the streak only, then sharpened it up some and made a negative. Look closely at the attached picture please...the main streak is a slightly darker orange than the background. Inside of this, you can see a DARK line that begins at the upper-side of the streak, slopes down, dissapears...and returns on the upper side again. It "Barber Poles" ALL THE WAY DOWN THE STREAK! Just look CLOSELY!

EDITOR AGAIN: Hope it "torpedoes" into C2-range, would be quite a sight, might not though. Looks like it will do that, zoom-view on C2, quote: On April 17, it will pass a mere 0.08 AU from the surface of our star. OBOY, the watch goes on! Watch the live Navy feed. When the Critter gets really close to Sol switch to the C2.  Hope they don't pull the data again.

Rough [very] Trajectory?

JERKING AROUND WITH THE FEED

WHAT THE BLAZES! THE NAVY SWITCHES TO AN OLD FEED Call this live data? Nosirree, they playing games with us. They could .. or might as well put a banner saying 'temporarily unavailable - something is happening we dont want you to see'

EDITOR: These addtional feed cuts bother me at: 20020414_0242 (many hours); 20020414_1718 (many hours) 20020415_1818 (many hours); 20020416_1718 (many hours); 20020417_0242 (ongoing). What are they worried about?

Now this is getting fun, stay tuned. We'll see what happens when we get the chance for a closer look. More data feed cuts? Betcha a buck-fifty....

IS THE EARTH BEING ATTACKED AT "RENDEZVOUS"?

Things to come: this is NOT the comet, but an interesting anomaly on the C2

4/16/02 1:42:13 PM Pacific Daylight Time

The "anomaly" was still in the same place 20 minutes later....but an hour and a half later was gone. Strange...

EDITOR: Posted second, the fact it was on 2 successive frames adds even more interest. How to interpret, unsure, odd that the anomaly is identical.

DAY FIVE: wow, good news bad news comet didn't get into C2 close up view but as comet flirted by in near passage the sun blew a giant heart-shaped CME in our direction, proton levels screamed, an earlier CME washed earth, the aurora blazed-- for us mad poet solar-geeks tis to view a massive solar orgasm.

SOLAR PASSION [notice immense hearth-throb]

DAY SIX & SEVEN: The Comet bids farewell, magnetic storms wash earth, the Northern sky blazes

DAY EIGHT

HARPY COMPLETE FLYBY EVENT: TELLS QUITE A TALE

POOR EDITOR LEAPS AGAIN: anybody else thinkin what I'm thinkin? Ol' Harpy be the wildest durned entity I've seen yet. Even makes me wonder if Planet X, a totally different critter, like a Thief In the Night, has not in fact already zoomed by, just a reckless thought.  Implications over next few days could be astounding --but subtle... Ok, looks like Sol, an obvious Poet Hisself, fell in love, a tryst with an ethereal entity, and now, NOW an immense solar orgasm! Sigh, poor Kento (and Sol) may never become respectfully scientifical.

Date: 4/21/02 10:11:45 AM Pacific Daylight Time

Now is the best time to view the low-res LASCO C3 MPEG http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/LATEST/current_c3small.mpg [stored locally] to see the complete solar flyby of the SOHO comet which ends with a massive CME following the X-class flare about 12 hours ago, Althugh NASA claims that comets are too small to affect the sun this latest close passage sure is coincident with a major increase in solar activity this past week.  One the best examples of how comets seem to affect solar activity can be seen in the June 1998 double comet death plummet and subsequent CME at: http://umbra.nascom.nasa.gov/comets/movies/SOHO_LASCO_C3_closeup.mpg 2

ALERT 4/21/02 X-CLASS Polar cap absorption of HF radio signals on transpolar circuits are expected to become significantly affected over the coming hours, with radio blackout conditions possible throughout at least the next 24 hours to 48 hours.

ORBIT MAIN