What 'Anomalies' Did the Telescope Photograph on 12 April 1950?

[walterpthefirst]

On the night of 12 April 1950, the 1.2 metre Samuel Oschin telescope at Mount Palomar observatory in California was routinely going about its business, photographing the night sky for the Palomar Sky Survey.  These surveys involve mapping the sky by making overlapping photographs that slot together neatly.  So, the area of sky of interest was photographed twice on that night and then again on 18 April.  Nothing unusual was noticed at the time.

 

Seventy-two years passed.

 

Last year scientists looked again at the now digitized Palomar plates.  Looking back at old sky survey photographs isn’t an unusual thing in astronomy.  It’s done to see if there have been any significant changes in a particular region of the sky.  Briefly, there are two kinds of transient things that could be picked up by this kind of old-and-new comparison.

 

Supernovae and novae are different types of exploding star that burst brightly upon the scene and then fade away to obscurity.  A star that appears on an old photograph but not on a modern one might well be one of those.  Another kind of celestial explosion, but on a much smaller scale, is when a faint red dwarf star undergoes a major flare.  This usually happens unpredictably.

 

Other kinds of transient phenomenon like variable stars and eclipsing binaries, that fade and then brighten, do so on timescales of days to years.  No known variable or binary has a cycle of brightening and fading that lasts for decades, so a change between an old photograph and a new isn’t going to indicate the presence of these things.

 

But when scientists compared the old Palomar photo with a modern one of the same area, they found nine point-like sources that were not on any up-to-date photos.  A follow-up with the 10.4 metre Gran Telescopio Canarias at the Canary Islands observatory could find no trace of these anomalous sources.  This modern telescope is many times superior to the old Samuel Oschin telescope.  It has a much larger light-gathering mirror and uses highly efficient CCD’s instead of photographic film.  Therefore, it is much more sensitive to faint light and should have been able to pin down sources many magnitudes fainter than the older telescope was capable of.

 

But no, nothing.

 

 

The four purple rings are where dust specks have been identified.  The green rings show where those nine anomalies appeared in 1950, but not in the modern photo of the same area.

 

Nine sources?  What could they be?  Supernovae and novae don’t explode synchronously.  Red dwarves don’t flare in unison.  Nor do variable stars brighten and fade in time with one another.  Another, more mundane possibility is that they could be specks of dust on the photographic film.  Ok, possible… but the plate taken of the same area of sky half an hour before shows no such contamination. 

 

However, there is one not-at-all mundane explanation that is being seriously considered by scientists.

 

Are these glints of sunlight being reflected off artificial objects that are in a near synchronous Earth orbit at a distance of 35,786 kilometres, moving at an inclined path with respect to the equator?   The point to remember here is that all survey telescopes track their field of view by moving themselves.  If they didn’t do this then as the Earth rotates each image of a star would get drawn out into a long trail.

 

Therefore, because these nine anomalies appear as point-like they must be matching the rotation of the Earth exactly.  Any other kind of motion would show itself as a drawn-out trail.  And if they were moving with respect to each other, that would also show up in the same way – trails on the photo.  This means that not only were these nine anomalies holding station with respect to the Earth, they were also holding station with respect to each other.  For nine separate objects to do that in Earth orbit requires them to be able to manoeuvre under their own power.  Natural objects do not have these capabilities.

 

But wait a minute!  This photo was taken in 1950. 

 

The first artificial object placed into Earth orbit was Sputnik 1, in 1957.  And then that was in low Earth orbit, at an altitude of several hundred kilometres, not tens of thousands of kilometres.  Geosynchronous orbit wasn’t achieved by our satellites until 1963.

 

So, whatever these nine ‘things’ were, they weren’t ours.

 

 

Here are my sources of information about this topic.

 

https://vascoproject.org/vanishing-stars/

 

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-92162-7

 

 

Thanks,

 

Walter.

[walterpthefirst]

 

In case I didn't make myself clear when I talked about stars making trails on a photograph, the above is an example of what I mean.

 

A telescope or camera in a fixed position and making a long exposure will show the rotation of the Earth.

 

Which will cause the point-like stars to become drawn-out trails or streaks.

 

Survey telescopes automatically compensate for this, keeping their gaze firmly fixed on a target area of the sky by using motorized motion.

 

Their photographs will always show the stars as points and not trails.

 

 

Thanks,

 

Walter.

[pantheory]

On 3/18/2024 at 9:47 AM, walterpthefirst said:

On the night of 12 April 1950, the 1.2 metre Samuel Oschin telescope at Mount Palomar observatory in California was routinely going about its business, photographing the night sky for the Palomar Sky Survey.  These surveys involve mapping the sky by making overlapping photographs that slot together neatly.  So, the area of sky of interest was photographed twice on that night and then again on 18 April.  Nothing unusual was noticed at the time.

 

Seventy-two years passed.

 

Last year scientists looked again at the now digitized Palomar plates.  Looking back at old sky survey photographs isn’t an unusual thing in astronomy.  It’s done to see if there have been any significant changes in a particular region of the sky.  Briefly, there are two kinds of transient things that could be picked up by this kind of old-and-new comparison.

 

Supernovae and novae are different types of exploding star that burst brightly upon the scene and then fade away to obscurity.  A star that appears on an old photograph but not on a modern one might well be one of those.  Another kind of celestial explosion, but on a much smaller scale, is when a faint red dwarf star undergoes a major flare.  This usually happens unpredictably.

 

Other kinds of transient phenomenon like variable stars and eclipsing binaries, that fade and then brighten, do so on timescales of days to years.  No known variable or binary has a cycle of brightening and fading that lasts for decades, so a change between an old photograph and a new isn’t going to indicate the presence of these things.

 

But when scientists compared the old Palomar photo with a modern one of the same area, they found nine point-like sources that were not on any up-to-date photos.  A follow-up with the 10.4 metre Gran Telescopio Canarias at the Canary Islands observatory could find no trace of these anomalous sources.  This modern telescope is many times superior to the old Samuel Oschin telescope.  It has a much larger light-gathering mirror and uses highly efficient CCD’s instead of photographic film.  Therefore, it is much more sensitive to faint light and should have been able to pin down sources many magnitudes fainter than the older telescope was capable of.

 

But no, nothing.

 

 

The four purple rings are where dust specks have been identified.  The green rings show where those nine anomalies appeared in 1950, but not in the modern photo of the same area.

 

Nine sources?  What could they be?  Supernovae and novae don’t explode synchronously.  Red dwarves don’t flare in unison.  Nor do variable stars brighten and fade in time with one another.  Another, more mundane possibility is that they could be specks of dust on the photographic film.  Ok, possible… but the plate taken of the same area of sky half an hour before shows no such contamination. 

 

However, there is one not-at-all mundane explanation that is being seriously considered by scientists.

 

Are these glints of sunlight being reflected off artificial objects that are in a near synchronous Earth orbit at a distance of 35,786 kilometres, moving at an inclined path with respect to the equator?   The point to remember here is that all survey telescopes track their field of view by moving themselves.  If they didn’t do this then as the Earth rotates each image of a star would get drawn out into a long trail.

 

Therefore, because these nine anomalies appear as point-like they must be matching the rotation of the Earth exactly.  Any other kind of motion would show itself as a drawn-out trail.  And if they were moving with respect to each other, that would also show up in the same way – trails on the photo.  This means that not only were these nine anomalies holding station with respect to the Earth, they were also holding station with respect to each other.  For nine separate objects to do that in Earth orbit requires them to be able to manoeuvre under their own power.  Natural objects do not have these capabilities.

 

But wait a minute!  This photo was taken in 1950. 

 

The first artificial object placed into Earth orbit was Sputnik 1, in 1957.  And then that was in low Earth orbit, at an altitude of several hundred kilometres, not tens of thousands of kilometres.  Geosynchronous orbit wasn’t achieved by our satellites until 1963.

 

So, whatever these nine ‘things’ were, they weren’t ours.

 

 

Here are my sources of information about this topic.

 

https://vascoproject.org/vanishing-stars/

 

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-92162-7

 

 

Thanks,

 

Walter.

 

My guess is gravitational lensing. As you know, as a large galaxy moves, so do the images behind it relative to the Earth's viewpoint of that area of the sky. The larger "foreground" galaxy may or may not be in the  1950 photographic image. But background galaxies behind it could move in their imagery relative to their position in the sky from our perspective, and sometimes even be magnified.

 

Of course this happens continuously in astronomy, but not in such an obvious way as in your very-small field example, and in such large numbers. Yes, in astronomy your described event is more than just a yawn.

[walterpthefirst]

22 hours ago, pantheory said:

 

My guess is gravitational lensing. As you know, as a large galaxy moves, so do the images behind it relative to the Earth's viewpoint of that area of the sky. The larger "foreground" galaxy may or may not be in the  1950 photographic image. But background galaxies behind it could move in their imagery relative to their position in the sky from our perspective, and sometimes even be magnified.

 

Of course this happens continuously in astronomy, but not in such an obvious way as in your very-small field example, and in such large numbers. Yes, in astronomy your described event is more than just a yawn.

 

I can't agree, Pantheory.  For two reasons.

 

 

The measurement of the movement (Proper Motion) of galaxies relative to each other is limited to the Local Group, with all galaxies beyond this loose association being unmeasured. 

 

messenger-no83-29-31.pdf (eso.org)

Proper Motions in the Local Group (mpg.de)

The proper motion of the Local Group galaxy IC 10 (aanda.org)

 

With there being no measurements of the proper motions of any galaxies beyond the Local Group your guess appears to be unsupported by any data.  

 

 

Secondly, these nine anomalies did not appear in another photo of the very same area of the sky, taken by the same telescope half an hour earlier.  So, if the gravitational lensing was caused by nine foreground galaxies moving with respect to nine background galaxies, what was it that synchronized the movement of eighteen gravitationally unconnected galaxies in this way?  Gravitational lensing only creates chance alignments between foreground and background objects because the motions of both are not coordinated with each other.  But you seem to be suggesting that eighteen widely separated galaxies coordinated the timing of their motions with respect to us to within half and hour of each other!

 

I find that incredible.  That is, beyond my capacity to believe.

 

 

Thank you,

 

Walter.

 

 

 

 

[pantheory]

2 hours ago, walterpthefirst said:

 

I can't agree, Pantheory.  For two reasons.

 

 

The measurement of the movement (Proper Motion) of galaxies relative to each other is limited to the Local Group, with all galaxies beyond this loose association being unmeasured. 

 

messenger-no83-29-31.pdf (eso.org)

Proper Motions in the Local Group (mpg.de)

The proper motion of the Local Group galaxy IC 10 (aanda.org)

 

With there being no measurements of the proper motions of any galaxies beyond the Local Group your guess appears to be unsupported by any data.  

 

 

Secondly, these nine anomalies did not appear in another photo of the very same area of the sky, taken by the same telescope half an hour earlier.  So, if the gravitational lensing was caused by nine foreground galaxies moving with respect to nine background galaxies, what was it that synchronizing the movement of eighteen gravitationally unconnected galaxies in this way?  Gravitational lensing only creates chance alignments between foreground and background objects because the motions of both are not coordinated with each other.  But you seem to be suggesting that eighteen widely separated galaxies coordinated the timing of their motions with respect to us to within half and hour of each other!

 

I find that incredible.  That is, beyond my capacity to believe.

 

 

Thank you,

 

Walter.

 

 

 

 

 

Just one background galaxy could lens (bend their position relative to our perspective of them -- (nine) galaxies behind it. This galaxy may or may not be in the photo.  If at great distances, these galaxies do not need to be close to each other.

 

I know of other possibilities which I will not explain since they are not mainstream.

Anyway this is my final guess and posting regarding this subject. Cheers

[walterpthefirst]

11 hours ago, pantheory said:

 

Just one background galaxy could lens (bend their position relative to our perspective of them -- (nine) galaxies behind it. This galaxy may or may not be in the photo.  If at great distances, these galaxies do not need to be close to each other.

 

I know of other possibilities which I will not explain since they are not mainstream.

Anyway this is my final guess and posting regarding this subject. Cheers

 

 

Your adjusted 'guess' still doesn't explain how these ten disconnected galaxies could synchronize their lensing to within half an hour of each other, Pantheory.

 

And I'm somewhat surprised you went for such a complicated explanation, involving the synchronized bending of nine separate light beams by a massive galaxy.

 

Especially when you've long advocated that the simpler an explanation is the more likely it is to be correct.

 

 

Surely, the mundane and quite ordinary explanation offered by the authors of the science paper is much, much simpler than yours?

 

That these are simply nine specks of dust that settled only on that photographic plate, back in 1950.

 

By your own standard, their simpler explanation is more likely to be correct than your complicated one.

 

 

Thank you,

 

Walter.

[pantheory]

8 hours ago, walterpthefirst said:

 

 

Your adjusted 'guess' still doesn't explain how these ten disconnected galaxies could synchronize their lensing to within half an hour of each other, Pantheory.

 

And I'm somewhat surprised you went for such a complicated explanation, involving the synchronized bending of nine separate light beams by a massive galaxy.

 

Especially when you've long advocated that the simpler an explanation is the more likely it is to be correct.

 

 

Surely, the mundane and quite ordinary explanation offered by the authors of the science paper is much, much simpler than yours?

 

That these are simply nine specks of dust that settled only on that photographic plate, back in 1950.

 

By your own standard, their simpler explanation is more likely to be correct than your complicated one.

 

 

Thank you,

 

Walter.

OK then, specks of dust on the photo-plate negative at that time could be the simplest answer.

[TheRedneckProfessor]

This thread seems more science-y than rant-y.  Or is it just me?

[walterpthefirst]

Happy if you want to move it, Prof.

[walterpthefirst]

10 hours ago, pantheory said:

OK then, specks of dust on the photo-plate negative at that time could be the simplest answer.

 

 

Now I'm confused, Pantheory.

 

 

You seem to accept my use of Occam Razor's here, when dealing with this question in astronomy.

 

But less than two weeks ago you wrote that the Razor shouldn't be used in astronomy.

 

 

I would never use Occam's razor to tackle questions in astronomy. Occam's Razor and logic are only used by me for untestable or unobserved  hypotheses in modern physics, primarily quantum mechanics, particle physics, cosmology. and cosmogony.

 

 

Care to explain?

 

 

 

Walter.

[pantheory]

6 hours ago, walterpthefirst said:

 

 

Now I'm confused, Pantheory.

 

 

You seem to accept my use of Occam Razor's here, when dealing with this question in astronomy.

 

But less than two weeks ago you wrote that the Razor shouldn't be used in astronomy.

 

 

I would never use Occam's razor to tackle questions in astronomy. Occam's Razor and logic are only used by me for untestable or unobserved  hypotheses in modern physics, primarily quantum mechanics, particle physics, cosmology. and cosmogony.

 

 

Care to explain?

 

 

 

Walter.

 

You seem to misunderstand statements  often. Astronomy is a hard science based upon the evidence of physical observation, measurements, and calculations, But those observations can be misinterpreted via theory which is not hard science. Many aspects of modern physics theory, including cosmology, have many aspects of their beliefs which are solely implied, but untestable and unobservable like: dark matter, dark energy, Inflation etc. etc. IMHO.

[walterpthefirst]

If dark matter is untestable and unobservable, did you rely upon it to posit that gravitational lensing was responsible for those nine anomalies?

 

 

[pantheory]

8 hours ago, walterpthefirst said:

If dark matter is untestable and unobservable, did you rely upon it to posit that gravitational lensing was responsible for those nine anomalies?

 

 

Of course not. A large galaxy or cluster in the proper line of sight, without dark matter, can lens galaxies behind it (change their optical direction or size) as Einstein explained. 

[pantheory]

On 3/20/2024 at 4:27 PM, TheRedneckProfessor said:

This thread seems more science-y than rant-y.  Or is it just me?

It's not just you -- I happened to stumble upon it on St. Patty's Day no less. To my dismay I may have missed a drink or two

[walterpthefirst]

7 hours ago, pantheory said:

Of course not. A large galaxy or cluster in the proper line of sight, without dark matter, can lens galaxies behind it (change their optical direction or size) as Einstein explained. 

 

But according to you Einstein's theories, like almost all of modern physics, is bs.

 

So why would you use something you consider to be bs to explain these nine anomalies?

 

 

[pantheory]

6 hours ago, walterpthefirst said:

 

But according to you Einstein's theories, like almost all of modern physics, is bs.

 

So why would you use something you consider to be bs to explain these nine anomalies?

 

 

 

His first theory, Special Relativity, provided great insight,such as the fact that motion is only relative, the compression of matter dimensionally and the slowing of time result as a reaction to high velocities,  etc. 

 

Einstein's "wrong turns" along the way IMHO are another subject unrelated to this one.

 

Hope you were able to drink some green beer on St. Patty's Day.  I both missed the green beer and forgot my green hat -- woe be mine   But I did find another bar not many miles away  

 

 

[walterpthefirst]

36 minutes ago, pantheory said:

 

His first theory, Special Relativity, provided great insight,such as the fact that motion is only relative, the compression of matter dimensionally and the slowing of time result as a reaction to high velocities,  etc. 

 

Einstein's "wrong turns" along the way IMHO are another subject unrelated to this one.

 

 

 

You were the one who introduced gravitational lensing into this thread, Pantheory.

 

The warping of spacetime by massive objects is described by another of Einstein's theories -  General Relativity.

 

You introduced General Relativity into this thread as your 'guess' to explain these nine anomalies.

 

 

So, do you consider his theory of General Relativity to be a "wrong turn"?

 

 

 

[pantheory]

30 minutes ago, walterpthefirst said:

 

 

You were the one who introduced gravitational lensing into this thread, Pantheory.

The warping of spacetime by massive objects is described by another of Einstein's theories -  General Relativity.

You introduced General Relativity into this thread as your 'guess' to explain these nine anomalies.

 

So, do you consider his theory of General Relativity to be a "wrong turn"?

 

 

No, it was not a wrong turn, but again this is another subject for another thread. Start one if you like, and I will explain what I consider to be the big problem with GR IMHO, if you are really interested.

 

btw, the "p" in my pseudonym pantheory, is lower case like in your pseudonym.

[walterpthefirst]

Thanks for letting me know about you pseudonym, Pantheory.