Introduction:
2024 Was a great year for comet imagers!

Four comets reached naked eye brightness and all showed interesting morphological variations through the eye of a camera and telescope.

At the start of the New Year, comet 12P/ Pons-Brooks had already arrived on the scene a few months earlier. This comet had several previous outbursts with outgassing's resembling devilish horns and commentors noted its resemblance to a Klingon warship. 12P/ continue to brighten moving to its closest approach to the sun on April 21 and closest to the earth on June 2, along its 71 year orbital return. Along its path, Pons-Brooks continued being ravaged by the active solar maximum winds creating a specter of tail dynamics and colorful hues of its nuclear coma (https://app.astrobin.com/i/el4qff). This comet continued to amaze as it swung around the sun moving into the Southern Hemisphere for its post perihelion show.

By early April another 70ish year periodical orbital yesteryear comet started to bloom. Comet 13P/ Olbers started to put on a nice show, by June, in relatively the same northwestern area of the sky that 12P/ had been a few weeks earlier. Due to the high altitude of the sun's northerly path, and the decreasing amount of darkness for the Northern latitudes, this comet became difficult to observe. One had to be in the right latitudinal location. If one were too far north the twilight hampered this binocular bright object. Being too far south removed any chance of seeing this object above one's horizon. But for those of us lucky enough to be in the right location with cooperative weather, comet Olbers was a treat to behold for nights on end. Ravaged by solar winds, 13P/ was an "anyone's" guess what direction the vibrant blue plasma tail would be pointing. This was exciting! The twists and turns of 13P/'s ion tail acted as if it couldn't decide which way to turn. This "catlike" behavior was an epitome of comets in general with their unpredictability. Historical significance? Perhaps. However, no previous images of comet 13P/ Olbers that I could research showed evidence of the exoticness of this comet. In fact the rapid day to day zigzagging of the ion tail and the all to common disconnects is a rarity viewed among most comets. It is hoped these images hold an interesting account of this comet and what its next 70 year return has instore for future observers.

The third comet of the year, proved to be the most spectacular thus far of 2024. Exciting times for the very dusty comet C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS as it whisked by the sun on Sept 27, the Earth on October 12th and orbital crossing on Oct 14th. Tsuchinshan-ATLAS saw its tail length grow to tens of degrees in a short four day period starting from October 12th. For myself, the length of comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS expanded from just over nine degrees (Oct13) to over 23 requiring 5 panels to make a Mosaic (through the same camera setup) taken during orbital plane crossing the following evening (https://app.astrobin.com/i/hwjuqo). The pronounced "anti-tail" could be seen extending from the comet's nucleus well beyond and below the horizon ridge of the Eastern Sierra Mtns on the 13th and 14th, continuing for days after. Interestingly a fan shaped greenish glow of comet 13P/ Olbers and globular cluster M5 were nearby and embedded in images of C/2023 A3 on those same mornings .

The final showcase comet of 2024 was C/2024 G3 ATLAS. Primarily a southern hemisphere object that is best left to those in the lower portion of the earth to describe its brightness and disintegrating nature.

The Sequences:
Although I started imaging Comet 13P/ Olbers , off and on, as early as April 01. Comet Pons-Brooks momentarily grabbed my imaging attention for most of April. Early on, Olbers showed promise as the plasma tail brightened and hinted of its dynamics. I began to image regularly attempting to capture this comet nightly in the evening sky. For 13P/'s 2024 apparition I tried to capture comet Olbers every clear moonless night, weather permitting. When twilight or moonlight interfered, I reduced the exposure time in order to keep the skyglow interference from swamping the sensor. Three separate distinct imaging blocks emerged. The first, presented here, covered 15 consecutive nearly moonless nights from the end of June through early July. With a brightening moon hiatus, the second block of images included 11 images (one night missing) covering a period between the end of July through the early parts of August. Realizing that Olbers was not only becoming lower to my horizon, as well as receding from the Earth and Sun (fading quickly), I decided to continue to image under increasing challenging conditions. By changing equipment to a larger scope and significantly reducing the length of exposures, the third block sequences were produced. I knew this would be the last time I'd be imaging this comet with any detail, in my lifetime. This third block-series of 8 consecutive images would be the most difficult of all with increasing moonlight over the mid August nights.

Sequence Notes:

For these sequences, I reprocessed every image (some nights previously published) of comet 13P/ Olbers from last year.
Differing night's comet image are aligned along their perspective starfield.
The composition was processed in PixInsight with an attempt to use consistent processing steps.
Variations in color, brightness and field gradients can be contributed to differences in sky, equipment, capturing and processing environments.
An attempt was made to maintain the same scope FOV orientation with 0 degrees at top and 90 degrees-east to left.
This orientation, although aligned in RA, doesn't portray the comet orientation in the sky. One would need to set up a horizontal reference system for alignment to see the comet position in respect to my evening horizon.
A large FOV using a RASA 11 and full frame sensor was used for the first two sequence, whereas a C14 F/2 was used for the final sequence.
The right (side of composite) image is the earliest date as the comet traveled to the left.
All times listed are local PDT.
Solar activity near maximum.
Composite resampled to 33.3% or 1/3 its original.

This image:
Fifteen Consecutive Night Composite of Comet 13P/ Olbers Surrounding Perihelion, June26 through July10 2024 centered around the June 30th 2024 perihelion date.

Image Notes:

Perihelion passage was June 30 UT.
Plasma tail unpredictability.
"Cat like" nature?