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Karl Battams

@sungrazercomets.bsky.social

1.4K followers 60 following 38 posts

Astrophysicist. PI of SOHO/LASCO & Sungrazer Project, studying mostly comets, asteroids, Sun and misc heliophysics stuff. Personal account; all opinions mine.

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Karl Battams @sungrazercomets.bsky.social · Nov 21

Hey there! 👋 For those that don't know me from the Other Place, I'm a scientist involved in heliophysics space missions, but with an emphasis on observations of comets & asteroids from those missions. So I Tweet...🤔 ...Bleet? 🤷... mostly stuff like this👇 (Comet McNaught in 2007, NASA STEREO-A)

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Karl Battams @sungrazercomets.bsky.social · Jan 17

Yeah, that paper and this one - www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... - give some details (I was co-author on both). In short: comet loses dust chunk; chunk falls apart; chunks of the chunk fall apart; chunks of the chunks of the chunk fall apart... etc... aka "cascading fragmentation".

Fine-scale structure in cometary dust tails II: Further evidence for a solar wind influence on cometary dust dynamics from the analysis of striae in comet C/2011 L4 Pan-STARRS

Striated features, or striae, form in cometary dust tails due to an as-yet not fully constrained process or processes. Using STEREO-B SECCHI HI-1 inst…

www.sciencedirect.com

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Reposted by Karl Battams

Simeon Schmauß @stim3on.bsky.social · Jan 16

What a beauty! This is comet C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) passing through the field of view of the LASCO C3 coronagraph.

It wasn't for certain whether it would survive it's closest approach to the sun on January 13th, but it did and delivered us a spectacular show!

#comet #C2024G3 🔭

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Karl Battams @sungrazercomets.bsky.social · Jan 14

Individual curves are here: lasco-www.nrl.navy.mil/index.php?p=... I could probably plot them... As for the original purpose of them... 🤷 I can ask some of the retirees what the thinking was.

PUNCH images would look a lot like C3 Clear, but with a wider fov.

Karl Battams @sungrazercomets.bsky.social · Jan 14

Yes!! Plus... SOHO was actually "lost" for ~3 months in '98, spinning out of control, and effectively frozen solid. The recovery was nothing short of miraculous! A great account of it can be found in "Saving SOHO", linked via: soho.nascom.nasa.gov/about/Recove...

Karl Battams @sungrazercomets.bsky.social · Jan 14

Yep, that processing is equally fantastic. It's all fantastic! 😊

Karl Battams @sungrazercomets.bsky.social · Jan 14

Here's the last frame in the sequence, minus the mp4/streaming compression. Still a tad over-exposed in my processing, but certainly much better than the default processing we see on the SOHO site.

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Karl Battams @sungrazercomets.bsky.social · Jan 14

As many have pointed out, the LASCO images on the SOHO website are saturated. So this is the result of my own algo for processing them.

And I will echo my sentiments from yesterday: This. Comet. Is. RIDICULOUS! 🤩😍 ☄️🔭☀️

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Karl Battams @sungrazercomets.bsky.social · Jan 13

Yeah there's a lot going on in these images - I don't want to speculate too much on exactly what. This is a particularly special comet for sure, though. And we will absolutely miss LASCO when it's gone ☹️

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Karl Battams @sungrazercomets.bsky.social · Jan 13

AAARRGHHH!!!!! 🤬😖😫

Yes it should. Sigh.

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Karl Battams @sungrazercomets.bsky.social · Jan 13

I really, REALLY can't get over just how beautiful this comet is in our LASCO images! I mean, I've seen more than a handful of comets in this data over the years (~5,200 to be exact - not that I'm counting...) But I've really gotta say... this might be the pick o' the bunch right here. WOW 😱😍☄️☀️🔭

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Reposted by Karl Battams

Terry Lovejoy @cometguy.bsky.social · Jan 13

C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) Jan 13.715, 2025 UT- Processed from images courtesy of SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory). An RGB image was created by mapping the color channels to images acquired with different filters using SOHO's LASCO C3 camera.

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Karl Battams @sungrazercomets.bsky.social · Jan 13

No problem! The wikipedia article is pretty good: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C/2024_...

Be skeptical of media sources (some are great, others less so), and always feel free to reach out with questions!

Reposted by Karl Battams

Dr. Craig DeForest ☀️ @craig.deforest.org · Jan 13

This has me really excited for the comet viewing we will do with PUNCH once we launch in a few weeks. Our inner field of view limit matches LASCO C3, but our outer field of view extends out six times farther — to 45 degrees from the Sun! ☀️🛰️🔭

Karl Battams @sungrazercomets.bsky.social · Jan 12

Short animation of C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) in the Blue filter on our ESA/NASA SOHO/LASCO C3 camera. ☀️🔭 Seeing lots of beautiful striations in the tail! 😍

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Karl Battams @sungrazercomets.bsky.social · Jan 13

☹️ Worth a shot! One day, hopefully we'll have a sungrazer we can all see in the daytime!

Karl Battams @sungrazercomets.bsky.social · Jan 13

That's still unknown. It's possible, but the LASCO cameras don't have the kind of resolution to tell us that. We might have clues in the next few days... Maybe...

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Karl Battams @sungrazercomets.bsky.social · Jan 13

Yeah I don't think it's quite naked eye. It's like vmag -2.5 or so. LASCO images look amazing tho!

Karl Battams @sungrazercomets.bsky.social · Jan 13

I've seen several images from folks capturing it during the daytime, so it is *technically* possible! Just of course take all the kind of precautions you'd expect to take when pointing magnifying optics near the Sun...😵😬 And report back if you get it! 😊

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Karl Battams @sungrazercomets.bsky.social · Jan 13

Truly a stunning tail on this comet, as seen by our @esa.int / NASA SOHO/LASCO camera! 😍☀️🔭☄️

Wolfgang Muehle @dermuehle.bsky.social · Jan 13

Comet C_2024 G3 (ATLAS) orange filter from
33817929.fts 2025/01/13 08:42:12 C3

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Karl Battams @sungrazercomets.bsky.social · Jan 12

Short animation of C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) in the Blue filter on our ESA/NASA SOHO/LASCO C3 camera. ☀️🔭 Seeing lots of beautiful striations in the tail! 😍

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Reposted by Karl Battams

cosmos4u.bsky.social @cosmos4u.bsky.social · Jan 12

Four views of comet ATLAS today: from soho.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtim... (SOHO LASCO C3 at 18:54 UTC today), x.com/dermuehle/st... (dito; deep red filter -> almost no saturation), www.facebook.com/groups/32578... (from the ISS) and www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=... (from the ground, in daytime).

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Reposted by Karl Battams

Sara Housseal ☀️ @snhwx.bsky.social · Jan 12

We have another super bright comet (C/2024 G3 Atlas) making an appearance in LASCO C3 imagery! ☀️☄️

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Reposted by Karl Battams

David Dickinson @astrodave.bsky.social · Jan 12

The Comet Observer’s Data Base (COBS) currently lists the comet at magnitude -3.7 ‘with a bullet’. Petr Horálek snapped this view of the comet at sunrise on January 11th over Spisske Podrhadie, Slovakia:

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Karl Battams @sungrazercomets.bsky.social · Jan 12

Zoomed in. No processing at all

Karl Battams @sungrazercomets.bsky.social · Jan 12

Comet G3 ATLAS looking great in the raw Blue filter LASCO C3 images! ☀️🔭

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Reposted by Karl Battams

Maik Meyer ☄️ @comethunter.de · Jan 11

The comet has been imaged during the day by Nick James, Chelmsford, UK. See groups.io/g/comets-ml/...
Elongation ~8°. Max mag expected on Jan 12/13.
Note: Never look directly at the Sun with the naked eye or with any unfiltered optical device, such as binoculars or a telescope!
☄️🔭 #CometWatch

CCD image of C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) taken at daytime on Jan 11, 2025, by Nick James, Chelmsford, UK. Positive (top) and negative (bottom) noisy image with a comet and a short tail clearly visible.

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