Conjecture on Baez's 'Quasar without a host galaxy'

In article ,
Michael Sandell writes:
http://laserstars.org/V1982/table1.html
gives proper motions and apparent redshifts for 30 quasars.

Uncertainties are too large to be useful; results look consistent
with zero. VLBA ought to be four or so orders of magnitude better,
which is what one would need to say anything meaningful.

--
Steve Willner Phone 617-495-7123
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA
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A more reliable source of information about quasar proper motion
than http://laserstars.org is:

Quasar Apparent Proper Motion Observed by Geodetic VLBI Networks
D. S. MacMillan 30 Sep 2003 The 10th Anniversary of the VLBA
http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0309826

This a fascinating field where quasars are convenient reference
beams for using VLBI to measure the movement of continents, to
millimetre accuracy. The observations span 1980 to 2002 and they
do find proper motion. The trick is to be sure that the core is
moving, not the lobes or jets - and it seems that this cannot be
shown from these observations.

Steve, I agree that any tired light theory based on em radiation
interacting with the IGM as an inhomogeneous medium would need to
meet tight constraints on scattering and blurring. My theory is
not detailed enough that I can be sure that this requirement
would be met.

- Robin http://astroneu.com

In article , "Robin
Whittle" writes:

A more reliable source of information about quasar proper motion
than http://laserstars.org is:

Quasar Apparent Proper Motion Observed by Geodetic VLBI Networks
D. S. MacMillan 30 Sep 2003 The 10th Anniversary of the VLBA
http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0309826

This a fascinating field where quasars are convenient reference
beams for using VLBI to measure the movement of continents, to
millimetre accuracy.

The accuracy of VLBI is very high. One has to correct for continental
drift when doing astrometry or, as you mention, vice versa, and the fact
that the speed of rotation of the Earth slows down in the springtime
since the leaves in the trees in the northern hemisphere increase the
Earth's moment of inertia.

The observations span 1980 to 2002 and they
do find proper motion. The trick is to be sure that the core is
moving, not the lobes or jets - and it seems that this cannot be
shown from these observations.

As I said in another post, no-one says that quasars should have no
proper motion. Rather, Arp's scenario makes a rather clear prediction
as to the amount of proper motion, and one can compare this to
observations.

One doesn't really have to worry about the quasars slowing down etc if
one looks at things statistically. In Arp's scenario, proper motion
should be away from the galaxy of origin, and should decrease with the
distance of the galaxy of origin. In the conventional scenario, proper
motion will be random with respect to the galaxies Arp claims the
quasars are ejected from, both with respect to direction and with
respect to the magnitude of the proper motion.

Steve, I agree that any tired light theory based on em radiation
interacting with the IGM as an inhomogeneous medium would need to
meet tight constraints on scattering and blurring. My theory is
not detailed enough that I can be sure that this requirement
would be met.

Apart from the arguments against tired-light theories, one also has to
ask the question whether there is any real motivation to pursue these at
all.

Steve Willner wrote:

Michael Sandell writes:
http://laserstars.org/V1982/table1.html
gives proper motions and apparent redshifts for 30 quasars.

Uncertainties are too large to be useful; results look consistent
with zero. VLBA ought to be four or so orders of magnitude better,
which is what one would need to say anything meaningful.

These figures are consistent with almost any hypothesis.
They could all be zero or they could be moving consistent with
the Arp-Narlikar model.

In another post Robin Whittle wrote:
A more reliable source of information about quasar proper motion
than http://laserstars.org is:

Quasar Apparent Proper Motion Observed by Geodetic VLBI Networks
D. S. MacMillan 30 Sep 2003 The 10th Anniversary of the VLBA
http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0309826

These figures are about two orders of magnitude less than the other
ones and therefore probably correspondingly more accurate. For lower
redshifts and a few higher ones they show 0.1 to 0.4 mas/year, i.e.
about 0.0001 - 0.0004 "/year. This is still an order of magnitude
more than the Arp-Narlikar model would require. Therefore the suggestion
that quasar motion should be observed but has not been if quasars are
at non-cosmological distances must firmnly be rejected.

--
Ray Tomes
http://ray.tomes.biz/
http://www.cyclesresearchinstitute.org/