Here be aliens or so some say -- maybe

Back on November 28, 1967 a grad student, Jocelyn Bell, discovered something very odd in the data on a radio object. No one could explain the emissions that pulsed with a regularity of an atomic-clock and thus far beyond anything ever seen in the skies. No one could understand what it was and some fell back to the old, even then, pseudoscience argument from ignorance, since it isn't anything we can explain it may be due to aliens idea and some even started calling it LGM for Little-Green_Men. It turned out it was the first known pulsar of which we know know of thousands. In a situation of "Déjà vu all over again" we now have a star seen in the Kepler data hunting for planets, KIC 8462852 to use the Kepler Input Catalog number (it's Yale number is TYC 3162-665-1), found a star with brightness variations that no one can explain. So far there are major problems with all astronomical explanations. So again falling back to the pulsar era the alien possibility is again being toted out. Yes the pulsar could have been an alien signal but wasn't. This too could be due to alien activity but I suspect it will again herald the discovery of something new in astronomical knowledge maybe opening up a whole new field of study as the pulsar has (will it get a watch named for it?).

Last night was the first night I had a hope of imaging it since it was announced. All I had were sucker holes but after 4 hours of trying I finally got enough data to put a quick image together. I found no spectroscopic classification for it but with a B-V value that ranged around .5 to 1 (sources varied greatly) I expected a slightly red star but instead got a slightly blue one. I found no color_image of the field but for one put together from the POSS data's red and blue plates by Aladin. That too showed it slightly blue. Now I'm confused. I doubt this has anything to do with the odd deep dips in the light curve of this star as these various measurements were random and highly unlikely to hit one of the dips in the curve. But I found nothing on how its color did change during a dip. So for now this is yet another mystery. I suppose somehow the clouds going by altered my color data but after calibration using NOMAD data the other stars all appear correct, this one is the exception. Also I grabbed three short exposures (10 seconds) during an apparently clear sucker hole and it showed the same slightly blue color. So I'm quite confident the color is correct, at least for last night. I took many color frames all but one of each color hit by clouds so only used the cloudless color frames. If it stays clear tonight I'll try again for better color.

For more on this star including the strange light curves that started all this, see Phil Plait's article on it http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astro...a ffling.html Another good article on it is in the Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/m...rc=nl_p1wemost

The field is full of stars, many of which Kepler has studied. The star is the slightly blue one in the center of the image. I've marked it in the cropped image.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=1x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Rick

At the time of the discovery of the LGM the ENTIRE SKY had been surveyed and it was the only one. Kepler has looked only at a tiny part of the sky and like the LGM example no one was looking for what was found. This star is so far the only one to have displayed this particular light curve but as a sample of one that's all that can be said. Once we knew what to look for and how to look then other LGM like signals were found but it was very slow going at first and none were a great match for the first all were different in some way. It took a lot of time to finally understand what was going on. This one light curve wasn't found by normal Kepler data analysis. It wasn't until the data was farmed out to many humans to look at that one decided this needed to be looked at. How many others overlooked it entirely as it wasn't what was being looked for?

Same with the first Voorwerp. It sat unrecognized for decades in survey images. It wasn't until Galaxy Zoo's Hanny van Arkel, a sharp pre school teacher in the Netherlands dared ask what it was she saw. Dozens had looked and not asked. It wasn't blamed on aliens as it was too large but again it was an example of one even though the sky had been surveyed many times and was hiding in plain sight. It happened that one of the early ideas of its nature seems to have been correct unlike the pulsar discovery or this star's light curve. Once we knew what to look for additional voorwerps (now called voorwepjes) have been discovered. I've imaged Hanny's and three others. I haven't tried for the others but suspect all within range of my very basic gear. So they didn't need expensive or exotic gear to find, just the right inquisitive mind to ask "What is it?" Same with this star's light curve.

I suspect that question will most likely be answered by a non alien answer. There's a lot of possibilities and more data will help. Jumping to the "It's Aliens" is little different than saying since the light seen in the sky can't be explained it must be a UFO and that means aliens. These are what in logic are known as arguments from ignorance. We don't know so jump to some conclusion rather than saying, "I don't know." For now that's by far the best answer.

Now that we know what to look for more may be found in Kepler's data but since it covers such a small piece of sky, if it is a short lived (only a few thousand of years is very short) they may be hard to find.

I suspect there's a plethora of unimagined things (outliers to use your term) out there yet to be discovered. Some may be lurking in Kepler data. That's why this effort of bringing human eyes to the task was formed -- to look for just this type of thing. It's these "outliers" that Nobel prizes are awarded. In the pulsar example Jocelyn Bell was snubbed by the Nobel Committee who gave it to her adviser instead. One of the great injustices of the prize, but not the only one, especially for women in my opinion.

Rick

Originally Posted by Mandy Liefbowitz

On Sat, 17 Oct 2015 20:39:55 +0100, WA0CKY
wrote:


Two thoughts:
Kepler viewed thousands and thousands of stars for *ages* and this is
the only strange one it found? The only outlier? That in itself is
very odd.
And ...
...
... it's traffic. Starship traffic. *BIG* starship traffic.
It's why they need a new bypass.
Mandy.