Date: 4/14/02 9:24:53 AM Pacific Daylight Time

From: BARDSQUILL

To: Larry.Combs@noaa.gov, Barbara.Poppe@noaa.gov, Viola.J.Raben@noaa.gov

Unidentified object and live event on SOHO C3

Dear NASA:

We are watching an object, live event, at 6:00 on the C3.

For identification purposes I have taken the liberty to make a small animation:

4-13-02tor3.gif

1. Any idea what we might be seeing?

2. When will the SOHO feeds be restored, last published frame, 20020414_0242? Hopefully interim frames will be included.

Many are watching and wondering.

Kent Steadman, Fresno City College Emeritus

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Subj: object, live event, at 6:00 on the C3

Date: 4/14/02 1:15:55 PM Pacific Daylight Time

From: BARDSQUILL

To: wang@ares.nrl.navy.mil

Dear Dr. Wang:

Unidentified object and live event on SOHO C3 Dear NASA:

We are watching an object, live event, at 6:00 on the C3.

For identification purposes I have taken the liberty to make a small animation: 4-13-02tor3.gif

Any idea what we might be seeing?

Many are watching and wondering.

Thanks,

Kent Steadman, Fresno City College Emeritus

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

Date: 4/15/02 2:06:58 AM Pacific Daylight Time

From: BARDSQUILL

To: webmaster@esa.nascom.nasa.gov

Dear Sirs:

RE: We are watching an object, live event, at 6:00 on the C3.

For identification purposes I have taken the liberty to make a small animation: 4-13-02tor3.gif

Any idea what we might be seeing?

Also when will we get the published feeds?

At:

http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/realtime-c3-1024-all.html

We see the feed stops at: 20020414_1718

However at:

ftp://lasco6.nascom.nasa.gov/pub/lasco/status/Current_Schedule.txt

We see that data is forthcoming from the spacecraft through:

2002/04/15 23:42 C3 19 1024 1024 1x1 1x1 Clear Clear Normal Image 3387

Many are watching and wondering.

Thanks,

Kent Steadman, Fresno City College Emeritus

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REPLIES:

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

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EDITOR RESONSE:

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.

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Subj: Target of Opportunity

Date: 4/16/02 6:17:37 AM Pacific Daylight Time

From: wang@ares.nrl.navy.mil

To: BARDSQUILL@aol.com

Sent from the Internet (Details)

------------- Begin Forwarded Message -------------

Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 17:29:50 -0400 (EDT)

Hi all,

Looks like the comet discovered this morning will be in the LASCO C3 field-of-view for the next week. It is currently at a heliocentric distance of about 65 Rsun. At perihelion on Apr 17, it will be at 17.5Rsun. It'll be a little bit closer to the Earth, but the phase angle is working against us.

Anyway, I'd like to get C3 color and pB sequences at least once per day all next week. Colors twice per day would be better. At the moment it is so faint it wouldn't show up in anything other than the Clear and Orange filters. Hopefully, it will be bright enough next week to see in all the filters. It's going to be caught up in the vignetting due to the pylon for the next couple of days anyway.

Orbital elements and ephemeris are given below.

Doug

Orbital elements:

C/2002 G3 (SOHO)

T 2002 Apr. 17.27 TT MPC

q 0.0825 (2000.0) P Q

Peri. 1.94 -0.87954 -0.34213

Node 150.17 +0.42713 -0.87397

e 1.0 Incl. 41.66 +0.20969 +0.34515

From 27 observations 2002 Apr. 12.

Ephemeris:

C/2002 G3 (SOHO)

Date TT R. A. (2000) Decl. Delta r Elong. Phase

2002 04 11 01 34.24 +00 43.9 1.266 0.313 8.5 28.5

2002 04 12 01 39.55 +01 48.6 1.227 0.275 8.2 31.2

2002 04 13 01 44.99 +03 02.5 1.186 0.235 7.7 35.1

2002 04 14 01 50.45 +04 28.9 1.141 0.194 7.3 41.0

2002 04 15 01 55.53 +06 13.3 1.092 0.152 6.7 51.0

2002 04 16 01 59.11 +08 25.1 1.036 0.111 6.0 70.3

2002 04 17 01 57.75 +11 10.1 0.975 0.084 4.6 107.8

2002 04 18 01 47.66 +13 46.9 0.929 0.093 3.3 141.6

2002 04 19 01 34.16 +15 24.1 0.912 0.128 5.4 133.1

2002 04 20 01 21.95 +16 18.5 0.911 0.170 8.5 119.1

2002 04 21 01 11.62 +16 50.6 0.917 0.212 11.5 108.7

2002 04 22 01 02.87 +17 10.4 0.926 0.253 14.3 101.0

2002 04 23 00 55.39 +17 23.1 0.937 0.292 16.8 95.1

2002 04 24 00 48.90 +17 31.3 0.949 0.329 19.1 90.3

2002 04 25 00 43.22 +17 36.6 0.961 0.365 21.2 86.4

2002 04 26 00 38.19 +17 40.0 0.973 0.400 23.2 83.0

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