The most successful comet hunter in history is actually the ESA/NASA SOHO spacecraft, which spends its time gazing at the Sun. Since many comets streak past the Sun all the time, they often get caught in SOHO's cameras. Toni Scarmato from Calabria, Italy discovered both SOHO's 999th comet, and then 5 minutes later he discovered its 1,000th as well. Almost all the discoveries have been made using SOHO's LASCO instrument, which images the Sun's large corona.