For an explanation of the problems we had on Saturday, please see:

http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/Bradfield.html

Please, bear in mind that our spacecraft was not designed to study
comets (but LASCO does a pretty decent job when they are in its field
of view, as more than 750 discovered comets can attest to).  When
something out of ordinary is going on, we try to follow it, even if it
is not directly related to the research being done with SOHO. But we do
not have the level of staffing required to operate 24/7, on top of our
regular working hours. In any case, when something like this is going
on, we do our best. That is why a number of us stayed around this
weekend working on our time off. Unfortunately, things sometimes go
wrong when we are not looking right at them.

I am sorry I cannot include a more personalize answer, but we have
received a very large amount of email about this.

Regards,

The SOHO Webmaster
webmaster@esa.nascom.nasa.gov

>From: BARDSQUILL@aol.com
>Date: Sat, 17 Apr 2004 14:48:45 EDT
>Subject: Disappointed in your feed
>To: webmaster@esa.nascom.nasa.gov
>MIME-Version: 1.0
>X-CRM114-Status: Good  ( pR: 19.6364 )
>
>Thousands of observers are anxiously awaiting for you to resume your C3 and
>C2 live data feeds.
>
>Comet Bradfield.
>
>Please help.
>
>Kent Steadman