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

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

I don't know that it's "more reliable," but it's certainly more
modern and shows what VLBI can do. If QSOs really are ejected from
nearby galaxies (out to 30 Mpc or so), VLBI ought to detect proper
motion. As you say, there will be some confusion with internal
motions in the QSOs, but those should show no preferential
orientation if the putative "parent galaxy" is really a foreground
object.

Notice also that the proper motion observations are complementary to
the statistical association studies. If the ejection velocity is
low, the QSO stays close to the parent galaxy for a long time, and
there ought to be an obvious concentration of QSOs around galaxies.
(There isn't.) If on the other hand the ejection velocity is high,
proper motions ought to be obvious.

I had a brief search to see whether the individual proper motions had
been published and didn't find anything. Someone interested in
pursuing the matter could contact MacMillan.

--
Steve Willner Phone 617-495-7123
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA
(Please email your reply if you want to be sure I see it; include a
valid Reply-To address to receive an acknowledgement. Commercial
email may be sent to your ISP.)

Steve Willner wrote:
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

I don't know that it's "more reliable," but it's certainly more
modern and shows what VLBI can do. If QSOs really are ejected from
nearby galaxies (out to 30 Mpc or so), VLBI ought to detect proper
motion. As you say, there will be some confusion with internal
motions in the QSOs, but those should show no preferential
orientation if the putative "parent galaxy" is really a foreground
object.

Notice also that the proper motion observations are complementary to
the statistical association studies. If the ejection velocity is
low, the QSO stays close to the parent galaxy for a long time, and
there ought to be an obvious concentration of QSOs around galaxies.
(There isn't.) If on the other hand the ejection velocity is high,
proper motions ought to be obvious.

I had a brief search to see whether the individual proper motions had
been published and didn't find anything. Someone interested in
pursuing the matter could contact MacMillan.

--
Steve Willner Phone 617-495-7123
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA
(Please email your reply if you want to be sure I see it; include a
valid Reply-To address to receive an acknowledgement. Commercial
email may be sent to your ISP.)

Proper motions of stars are pre-galactic notions besides they contain
elements of the celestial sphere in position descriptions of external
galaxies.

The only real means,at least presently, to determine the actual
positions of external galaxies to our own and subsequently to each
other relies on using the rotation of the foreground Milky Way stars
and supernova data arriving from individual parent galaxies.

As cepheids can be used to determine distance,grafting in the utility
of supernova data to extract the real position of galaxies to the
stellar foreground would be difficult to the nth degree but it is far
more productive and exciting for it returns astronomical methods back
to its geometrical roots.

VLBI is a non starter given its pedigree as calendrically/celestial
sphere based origins..As stellar circumpolar motion is to
Copernicus,'universal expansion' is to Roemer for within that
observation (it is not an illusion and neither can it be intepreted
directly) are the clues to further investigations that involve grafting
in the stellar foreground stars of the Milky Way and their rotation
against the parent galaxies that contain both supernova and cepheids or
the tools to make sense of large scale structures and motions between
galaxies.

In message , oriel36
writes
Steve Willner wrote:
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

I don't know that it's "more reliable," but it's certainly more
modern and shows what VLBI can do. If QSOs really are ejected from
nearby galaxies (out to 30 Mpc or so), VLBI ought to detect proper
motion. As you say, there will be some confusion with internal
motions in the QSOs, but those should show no preferential
orientation if the putative "parent galaxy" is really a foreground
object.

Notice also that the proper motion observations are complementary to
the statistical association studies. If the ejection velocity is
low, the QSO stays close to the parent galaxy for a long time, and
there ought to be an obvious concentration of QSOs around galaxies.
(There isn't.) If on the other hand the ejection velocity is high,
proper motions ought to be obvious.


Proper motions of stars are pre-galactic notions besides they contain
elements of the celestial sphere in position descriptions of external
galaxies.

Could someone translate this into standard English?


The only real means,at least presently, to determine the actual
positions of external galaxies to our own and subsequently to each
other relies on using the rotation of the foreground Milky Way stars
and supernova data arriving from individual parent galaxies.

As cepheids can be used to determine distance,grafting in the utility
of supernova data to extract the real position of galaxies to the
stellar foreground would be difficult to the nth degree but it is far
more productive and exciting for it returns astronomical methods back
to its geometrical roots.

VLBI is a non starter given its pedigree as calendrically/celestial
sphere based origins.

And this?

.As stellar circumpolar motion is to
Copernicus,'universal expansion' is to Roemer for within that
observation (it is not an illusion and neither can it be intepreted
directly) are the clues to further investigations that involve grafting
in the stellar foreground stars of the Milky Way and their rotation
against the parent galaxies that contain both supernova and cepheids or
the tools to make sense of large scale structures and motions between
galaxies.

"Jonathan Silverlight" wrote in message
...
In message , oriel36
writes
.....
Proper motions of stars are pre-galactic notions besides they contain
elements of the celestial sphere in position descriptions of external
galaxies.

Could someone translate this into standard English?

It's not easy but I'll give it a go:

a) So-called "proper motions" of stars are actually
an illusion caused by rotation of the Milky Way.

b) The Earth rotates through 360 degrees in a solar
day, not a sidereal day as astronomers think,
therefore the concept of right ascension as a
means of documenting the location of stars is
flawed.

As for the rest, your guess is as good as mine.

George

Someone whose nested quoting has overflowed my mental stack suggested:
b) The Earth rotates through 360 degrees in a solar
day, not a sidereal day as astronomers think,
therefore the concept of right ascension as a
means of documenting the location of stars is
flawed.

There are a lot of flaws with this suggestion, but one instructive
one is that the difference between the solar and siderial day is
around 1/365 = 1/3 of a percent.

In contrast, a quick look at
http://www.phys.canterbury.ac.nz/res...er/index.shtml
shows real-time measurements of the Earth's spin rate (via large
ring laser gyroscopes and the Sagnac effect) which are accurate down
to the the parts-per-billion level.

--
-- "Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply"
Max-Planck-Institut fuer Gravitationsphysik (Albert-Einstein-Institut),
Golm, Germany, "Old Europe" http://www.aei.mpg.de/~jthorn/home.html
"Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the
powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."
-- quote by Freire / poster by Oxfam

In article , George Dishman
writes:

"Jonathan Silverlight" wrote in message
...
In message , oriel36
writes
.....
Proper motions of stars are pre-galactic notions besides they contain
elements of the celestial sphere in position descriptions of external
galaxies.

Could someone translate this into standard English?

It's not easy but I'll give it a go:

a) So-called "proper motions" of stars are actually
an illusion caused by rotation of the Milky Way.

To some extent, yes, but stars also have a peculiar motion, i.e. a real
motion through space. Observed proper motion is a combination of this
and the "illusion" referred to above.

b) The Earth rotates through 360 degrees in a solar
day, not a sidereal day as astronomers think,
therefore the concept of right ascension as a
means of documenting the location of stars is
flawed.

There is, of course, an extragalactic reference frame, defined via
quasars. While this is somewhat problematic if quasars show a proper
motion, ON AVERAGE they will probably have a negligible proper motion
and/or the higher redshift quasars (at least in the standard paradigm)
will have a negligible proper motion. (I'm not very familiar with it,
but I would suspect that this reference frame is defined via
high-redshift quasars.)

"Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply"
wrote in message ...
In article , George Dishman
writes:

"Jonathan Silverlight" wrote in message
...
In message , oriel36
writes
.....
Proper motions of stars are pre-galactic notions besides they contain
elements of the celestial sphere in position descriptions of external
galaxies.

Could someone translate this into standard English?

It's not easy but I'll give it a go:

a) So-called "proper motions" of stars are actually
an illusion caused by rotation of the Milky Way.

To some extent, yes, but stars also have a peculiar motion, i.e. a real
motion through space. Observed proper motion is a combination of this
and the "illusion" referred to above.

Gerald I think is suggesting the proper motion is
entirely due to this. Given the next point, his
view equates to a motion of all the stars round
the Earth once a year.

b) The Earth rotates through 360 degrees in a solar
day, not a sidereal day as astronomers think,
therefore the concept of right ascension as a
means of documenting the location of stars is
flawed.

There is, of course, an extragalactic reference frame, defined via
quasars. While this is somewhat problematic if quasars show a proper
motion, ON AVERAGE they will probably have a negligible proper motion
and/or the higher redshift quasars (at least in the standard paradigm)
will have a negligible proper motion. (I'm not very familiar with it,
but I would suspect that this reference frame is defined via
high-redshift quasars.)

Indeed. However, Gerald's view can be falsified
by noting that the stars rise and set about four
minutes earlier each day.

George

In message , George Dishman
writes
"Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply"
wrote in message ...
In article , George Dishman
writes:

"Jonathan Silverlight" wrote in message
...
In message , oriel36
writes
.....
Proper motions of stars are pre-galactic notions besides they contain
elements of the celestial sphere in position descriptions of external
galaxies.

Could someone translate this into standard English?

It's not easy but I'll give it a go:

a) So-called "proper motions" of stars are actually
an illusion caused by rotation of the Milky Way.

To some extent, yes, but stars also have a peculiar motion, i.e. a real
motion through space. Observed proper motion is a combination of this
and the "illusion" referred to above.

Gerald I think is suggesting the proper motion is
entirely due to this. Given the next point, his
view equates to a motion of all the stars round
the Earth once a year.

I wonder how he explains the motion of the stars of the Plough (Big
Dipper) - even the most elementary textbook notes that two stars are
moving in a different direction to the rest
http://www-astronomy.mps.ohio-state....es/proper.html

Nice movie!


b) The Earth rotates through 360 degrees in a solar
day, not a sidereal day as astronomers think,
therefore the concept of right ascension as a
means of documenting the location of stars is
flawed.

There is, of course, an extragalactic reference frame, defined via
quasars. While this is somewhat problematic if quasars show a proper
motion, ON AVERAGE they will probably have a negligible proper motion
and/or the higher redshift quasars (at least in the standard paradigm)
will have a negligible proper motion. (I'm not very familiar with it,
but I would suspect that this reference frame is defined via
high-redshift quasars.)

Wouldn't finding proper motions of quasars be almost as upsetting as
finding that Gerald (or Ralph Sanbury) was right? :-)


Indeed. However, Gerald's view can be falsified
by noting that the stars rise and set about four
minutes earlier each day.


Gerald occasionally posts a link to a picture of star trails round
Polaris.
Has anyone taken a picture lasting a full 23 hours 56 minutes? You could
do the arithmetic with shorter trails, but it wouldn't be so dramatic.