Requiem for Relativity

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by nemesis</i>
<br />Joe, I wonder if there are any telescopes in private hands with enough power to image Barbarossa. The problem with the big observatories, including USNO, is that it's so hard to get time, even for those in the "club", so to speak.
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International competition helps (e.g., Galle, who listened to Leverrier, trumped Airy, who didn't listen to Adams, re Neptune) but "One World" is lessening that. There's groupthink, that united, they can define reality, somewhat as Canute sarcastically said, but unlike Canute, they really believe the tide doesn't come in if they say it doesn't (they have $100 billion in tax dollars to back them up). Most "wait for someone [above them in the pecking order] to tell them what to think". I'll send an email to the Lowell Observatory today, but private observatories, like private colleges and foundations, also get sucked into the corrupting bureaucratization process which government funding brings.

In defense of the astronomy establishment, they do have a love-hate relationship with their fans ("can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em") rather like actors. Without fans they'd get no money, so they court the public in the newspapers & educational TV, but then they have to hide from all the people who want to tell them the moon is made of green cheese.

Tombaugh searched the entire ecliptic down to +17 with a 13" telescope and 1930 photographic technology. It was at 7200 ft. in N. Arizona before light pollution, smog, and "wide persistent contrails" which are usually a gross problem for me because I live under a jet route through central Iowa.

Two experienced amateur astronomers (one local and the other very active) told me their 24" could do it, but both declined to look; neither offered to let me use their equipment. Iowa State Univ. has a 24" but their observatory chief also declined to look.

So far, the best observing program we have is Stoat's, with the 14" on Tenerife at 7800 ft; this gives 14x14' photos with, I gather from the online log, up to 3 minute (180000 ms) exposures. Conveniently, the Aladin images are cut to about this size. The 48" Schmidt at La Silla, also at 7800 ft, used 1hr exposure to photograph Barbarossa, but those plates were 6.5x6.5deg:

60*(48/14*14/390)^2= 0.9 minute would give the equivalent exposure for Bradford at Tenerife

As many of us as possible should follow Stoat, asking him for specific directions if necessary, and order views along the Barbarossa track with 0.9 minute exposures, asking Bradford to post it publicly. This exposure (54000 ms) will be the clue that it's "one of ours" for anyone scanning the online Bradford jobs. Then compare the images to Aladin's (their "Optical Red" is from La Silla), by opening two windows on your browser. If anyone here knows that new technology since 1987, requires a much different exposure, please post the information into this thread.

Okay, I've put a job up on the Bradford for 11 9 00, -6 51 00. at 54000 ms. I'll post when they get it done, and we can then put the same job in again and compare them by blinking the two, or more, plates.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Stoat</i>
<br />Okay, I've put a job up on the Bradford for 11 9 00, -6 51 00. at 54000 ms. I'll post when they get it done, and we can then put the same job in again and compare them by blinking the two, or more, plates.
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Thanks!

"Two experienced amateur astronomers (one local and the other very active) told me their 24" could do it, but both declined to look; neither offered to let me use their equipment. Iowa State Univ. has a 24" but their observatory chief also declined to look."
This seems very strange. Do you suppose a suggestion that they could be co-discoverers would motivate them? This could be one of the greatest astronomical discoveries in decades.

A professional observational astronomer told me Saturday, by phone, that the USNO-B magnitudes at the faint end, aren't accurate enough to produce significant clustering like the "Freya" and "Frey" "dim Red" magnitudes. He offered no numbers.

If the standard deviation of the magnitude measurements is 0.1, clustering such as "Freya" (five of the dimmer Object #1-8 mags were in the interval [20.60,20.73]) is possible. If the s.d. is 0.2, it's unlikely. Red dwarfs are variables: this masks the true error in this range; it can't be determined simply from R1 vs. R2 in a sample.

Pixel analysis (above) suggests moon(s), but my original reason for suspecting moons, was the clustering of the dimmer magnitudes. Alternatively, the clustering might be an artifact of the computer's effort to find images of Barbarossa on a Proper Motion path on all seven other plates.

After generously estimating (above) 40 plates of each region, I learned the typical 6.5x6.5deg size of the (almost 8000) plates scanned by the USNO. This reduces the estimate (the ecliptic might be slightly favored) to exactly 8: too few to produce the theorized aliasing more than once, if that. However, Barbarossa's great circle sky track and its associated statistical significances, remains.

Barring any longitudinally interlaced sky survey program, Barbarossa will appear on exactly 8 plates. It does. These plates give Objects #1-8.

Viewing the Aladin plates, I saw that the dimmest reliable stars had USNO-B Red mags of about +19.5. Maybe all mags dimmer than +19.5, arise from averaging, something definite &lt; +19.5, with vague things &gt; +19.5. For PMs &gt; 80 or &lt; -80, R1-R2 pairs both &gt; +19.5 (N=782 in a 1 deg redius), are no more common than pairs with one &gt; & one &lt; (N=779). Not a single object in a 1 deg radius had R1,R2 &gt; 20.90. Some of the stars I found with Red mags &lt; 18.99 & &gt; 19.50, would be variable red dwarfs, especially nearer +19.50, but most are presumably instances where the computer averaged a star, with dim blobs, of practically zero flux and almost infinite magnitude. According to the explanatory 2003 Astronomical Journal article, only location, not magnitude, was a criterion for identification.

An +18.75 star averaged with one dim blob would give +19.5. The maximal six dim blobs (one straightforward identification, matched, for the requisite second ID, to the other seven plates on which the real star is picked once and dim blobs six times) would give +20.9: this is where the almost uniform distribution of "dim Red" mags ended.

When the computer tried to analyze Barbarossa, the only way to get a second Red mag, was to associate the Barbarossa found on one plate, with at least seven dim blobs on the other plates. Trying to find Proper Motion, the computer found seven (or more) dim blobs on the other seven plates, making some semblance of a Proper Motion path. The "PM" so determined, would resemble the chi-square distribution with at least 7 degrees of freedom: its peak is sharp enough to put these pseudo-"PMs" on a rough circle. That Barbarossa is a streak (perhaps 1.5" due to Earth's motion and another 3" due to Frey & Freya) somehow distorts that circle into the "PM ellipse" discussed above.

Let Barbarossa, together with its non-resolved separate moons orbiting at, perhaps, 200,000 mi, have magnitude +17.41, like Object #1. Arithmetically averaged (i.e., by flux) with one dim blob, this becomes +18.16. Object #2 has +18.17 and Object #4 +18.03. Averaged with two dim blobs, Barbarossa becomes +18.61. Object #5 has 18.59, Object #7 +18.54 & Object #3 +18.57. Averaged with three dim blobs becomes +18.91. Object #6 has +18.84 & Object #8 +18.80.

The star nearest Barbarossa on the DSS-2 plate, "F1" above, is, by the above pixel analysis, about two magnitudes dimmer than Barbarossa, not one magnitude. So, the USNO-B Red mags of F1 & the somewhat brighter or similar F2&3, are consistent with +17.4 mag, not with the USNO-B catalog's +18.57, nor even with the average +18.1 for Barbarossa. This underestimation by the USNO-B catalog, of Barbarossa's magnitude on Object #3's plate, supports the foregoing theory.

The dimmer "moon" magnitudes arise from averaging the magnitudes of the seven relatively faint, non-Barbarossa objects along Barbarossa's pseudo-PM path. If two of these are real stars of magnitude +19.3, and the other five are "dim blobs" with practically zero flux, then the "moon" magnitude is +20.66, as for the five "Freyas" ([20.60,20.73]). If three of seven are real stars, then the magnitude is +20.22 (two "Freys": [20.22,20.26]). If five of seven are real, the mag is +19.665 (Object #8: 19.65); Object #8 (like Object #4) overlies a galaxy, which facilitates finding more real stars. The Freya sightings are associated with slightly but significantly (Student's t) less PM than are the Frey sightings, because paths with more real stars tend to be the longer ones.

The precision of the statistical findings is due to the USNO computer's effort to force Barbarossa into a "one-size-fits-all" program designed for stars. The eight Objects would span, typically, 7/8*50=44 yr; 15m in 44yr at 26.5deg slope gives, for a circular orbit, period 3780yr (maybe IRAS Source #1 isn't Barbarossa). More stringently, 7m in 16yr from Object #4 (1987) to Object #8 (2003?), gives an upper bound of 2950yr.

Aladin shows me only three, of the eight plates which the USNO surely used. For Object #3, one of these three plates is the plate which shows Barbarossa. Barbarossa must be on two more of the Aladin plates: the only two which I didn't check carefully were those which overlay galaxies (Objects #6 & #. The dates on the ESO DSS-1 FITS headers, for these locations, might be the dates of the Aladin "Optical Blue" plates, which are labeled DSS1. I'll check these to find the date of either Object #6 or Object #8.

"Frey sightings" occur, on average, at smaller RA than "Freya sightings". Both Frey and Freya sightings increase in magnitude (i.e., they dim) with increasing RA; for Freya sightings, this is statistically significant (see above). This could be because toward the galactic plane (smaller RA), the real stars found by the computer program seeking a PM path, are commoner and brighter.

According to the "FITS" headers, all the DSS1 plates for the eight Objects were made in March or, oftener, May, in 1983 or 1984. With parallax correction, the appearance of Barbarossa as Object #2 or Object #7 on the DSS-1 plate would conform to a circular 2000 yr prograde period. Because this plate (same plate for both objects) was made in May, there will be practically no Earth motion streak. There are suspicious pixels at the location of Object #7 (see below).