Constraints on the Bright Meyer Group Comet C/2023 F2 (SOHO)

Abstract

Abstract Comet C/2023 F2 (SOHO) was one of the brightest members of the poorly understood Meyer near-Sun comet group. Here we report our unsuccessful attempt to recover this comet from the ground using the Danish 1.54 m telescope. We observed the predicted position of the comet on 2023 April 4–5 UT when the comet was at 0.6 au and 36°–38° from the Sun, and searched an area that has 5%–10% likelihood to contain the comet down to R ∼ 20. Despite the search being unsuccessful, we show that it is possible to reach reasonable depth at small solar elongation, and that wide-field meter-class telescopes are desirable for the recovery of these objects from the ground.