Requiem for Relativity

[] We'd have to pronounce the name as Billgatease, in order to sneak it past the powers that be. They'd be angry once the realised they'd been duped but the money would be in the bank account by then [8D]

I was thinking about Sedna and Eris. if the sun condensed out of a pure gas cloud, then its diameter at the start would be about 14 light years. That's saying that we have about one atom per cubic centimeter. So, add some dust. The ratio for clouds near us is about 1 in a hundred. Not much change in the radius then. So, let's say that in the early stage of star formation we have a build up of dust particles. Further let's say that when two atoms combine, their aether "atmosphere" increases in extent and this breaks some of the angular momentum of the cloud. Something like watching the bubbles in the centre of your coffee cup merging into one.

If we have Sedna sized chunks of stuff form early on, then their orbits would be effected by the nearest new star to ours in the nursery. Then the whole thing pulls in towards what we see today.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Bill_Smith</i>
<br />Hi Joe,

I should point out that there are no disappearing/moving objects on Bobs NEM10 and 12 images. The disappearing dots are artifacts. The Minimum FWHM of every stellar object in the images was 5.1" indicating poor seeing and/or poor focus and the targets you identified had a FWHM of 1.3". Given the image resolution was 1.48"/pixel this indicates hot pixels.

Cheers

Bill
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Dear Bill,

Thanks for letting me know what you found on these Bradford Observatory photos.

- Joe Keller

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Bill_Smith</i>
<br />Hi Joe,

I should point out that there are no disappearing/moving objects on Bobs NEM10 and 12 images. The disappearing dots are artifacts. The Minimum FWHM of every stellar object in the images was 5.1" indicating poor seeing and/or poor focus and the targets you identified had a FWHM of 1.3". Given the image resolution was 1.48"/pixel this indicates hot pixels.

Cheers

Bill
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Dear Bill,

Thanks for letting me know what you found on these Bradford Observatory photos.

- Joe Keller

Steve Riley (Buena Vista Observatory, California) photographed what I call his "Object #1" at approx. 07:39 UT on April 1, 2007. By comparison with the 1987 La Silla archive image (on which it is absent), its position (J2000 geocentric coordinates) is

RA 11 26 24.6 Decl -8 57 48.5.

Riley has a new photo which shows what I call his "Object #2" likewise not found on the 1987 archive image. It was taken (midrange of contributing exposures) 05:41 UT on April 24, 2007. Its coordinates (again by comparison with 1987) are

RA 11 26 09.58 Decl -8 55 56.0.

(This second point is corrected for the proper motion of the reference stars but the first point isn't. That's alright, because the relevant stellar PMs are uncertain and of marginal size in both cases, especially the first.)

Using the ephemeris position of the sun at these times, in my above-mentioned computer program, I found that the heliocentric xyz position of these objects differs as though they are the same object which has moved 0.1 AU prograde in an orbit inclined 34 degrees (and moving south) to the celestial equator. Barbarossa's orbit would move it 0.03 AU prograde and is inclined 27 degrees.

There is little remaining discrepancy in the x coordinate. Two-thirds of the remaining discrepancy in the y coordinate is removed by employing my above-mentioned model of the Barbarossa-Frey orbit, but this model does not remove the z coordinate discrepancy. If I do not insist on a circular actual orbit for Frey about Barbarossa, I can move the apparent semimajor axis 37 degrees, until it is parallel to Barbarossa's solar orbit: then, the predicted x, y, and z coordinates of Riley's Object #2 all become roughly what is observed.

Riley uses an 11" [correction 6/24/08: 8"] telescope. In Riley's photo I found two different +19.3 stars with stable catalog magnitudes. One of these stars was obvious, and one amounted to a barely discernible pixel overdensity. So, I think the position of Riley's Object #2 is more important than its appearance, which is faint and abnormally small.

Most of the apparent motion between Riley's Objects #1 & #2, is due to Earth parallax. The daily change in Earth parallax is shrinking rapidly, but for the next few days, linear interpolation will predict the geocentric coordinates accurately enough to find Riley's Object, which I think is Frey. When Riley's Object (Frey) is found a third time, then quadratic interpolation can be used to predict the geocentric coordinates.

I tried a clustercam shot of RA 11 26 09.58 Decl -8 55 56.0
with the Bradford. No joy [] It takes a 3 degree image, and the exposure can be set to one minute maximum. I got an image with only one star on it [] They are all dim stars in that bit of sky, so I assume that exposure is way too low.

<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 />I tried a clustercam shot of RA 11 26 09.58 Decl -8 55 56.0
with the Bradford. No joy [] It takes a 3 degree image, and the exposure can be set to one minute maximum. I got an image with only one star on it [] They are all dim stars in that bit of sky, so I assume that exposure is way too low.
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Thanks, and don't give up! Here's something that would help me and everyone else: on the other thread where you've been posting the Bradford photos, it would be helpful to amend those posts so that each photo has, right next to it, the time of exposure (the Universal Time of the midpoint of the exposure, would be ideal) and also the J2000 celestial coordinates of the midpoint of the image (this can be obtained by comparing the photo to the online "Aladin" image). (Other information is relatively unimportant and could be omitted to avoid clutter.)