home bbs files messages ]

Forums before death by AOL, social media and spammers... "We can't have nice things"

   alt.paranet.ufo      Network of UFO fanatical nutjobs      11,639 messages   

[   << oldest   |   < older   |   list   |   newer >   |   newest >>   ]

   Message 11,570 of 11,639   
   MrPostingRobot@kymhorsell.com to All   
   unusual light variations seen by space t   
   06 Sep 22 02:11:41   
   
   EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:   
   - We have produced 3 movies of the TESS data watching 1000s of stars   
   for planetary transits.   
   - The first movie shows the variation of average brightness of the   
   primary pixels representing each star.  The movie shows many regions   
   of sky seem to brighten and darken together. Some bright or dark lines of   
   10x10 deg tiles appear and disappear suddenly. At times areas twinkle   
   synchronously, which seems unusual.  There are also single tiles that   
   darken or brighten and remain dark or bright for hours or days.  These   
   are not so unusual -- they may represent flaring or transit of a   
   planet.  Each tile is the average of several randomly-assigned stars   
   but if one of them varies in brightness markedly the average will also   
   show that.   
   - The 2nd movie shows the same calculation but for "background pixels"   
   around the main target pixel for each star. We expect to see more   
   anomalous activity given the tiles are averaged over 100s of pixels   
   and not just several. And that's what we see. We also note bright   
   events are more common than the first movie but dark events seem less   
   common. This is understandable given we are no longer seeing   
   objects block the central pixel of the star and pixels away from the star   
   may not be normally that bright to start with.   
   - The 3rd movie, still coming off the pipeline, shows   
   quality-controlled and lightly processed versions of the central pixel   
   flux.  These data are meant for use by researchers looking for   
   planetary transits.  We note the processing done by the TESS group   
   apparently achieves its aim of removing noise. We see in our movie the   
   position for each planet seem to be surrounded by a dark tile -- an   
   indication the processing by the TESS group actually is trying to   
   suppress light pollution from each planet, the sun, the moon and the earth.   
   We also note there is much less anomalous brightening and darkening. The   
   processing has eliminated a good part of the activity we are trying to observe.   
      
      
   The s/w has re-computed its movies using parts of the TESS dataset other   
   than the pixels representing "stars of interest" for planetary transits.   
      
   The TESS project has targeted about 5000 bright or close stars for   
   close-up examination for planetary transits. Unlike the Kepler   
   telescope TESS is mostly looking for single transits so doesn't follow   
   particular stars for many months or years. But similar to Kepler its   
   output files consist of "FITS files" that contain several data-streams   
   extracted from the raw ~2000x2000 images.   
      
   The primary output is the flux as measured by the relevant CCD array   
   at the pixel selected to be the "target pixel" for the given star.   
   Deep-diving users of the system can fish around and select whichever   
   pixels they determine to best measure the brightness of the star at   
   any time, but the default output in the FITS files is the value used   
   in my current crunching.   
      
   There are additional streams of data that might be useful for   
   planetary transits and also for us here -- looking for things that   
   might be moving around between the earth and the moon.   
      
   The first secondary output is a "background" value that shows the   
   average over several pixels up, down, left and right of the main   
   target pixel. For transits it may be possible to see a little dot away   
   from the target star that represents something interesting.  For us   
   here the background is just a larger area to examine for funny bright   
   and dark areas that may move from region to region in the sky TESS is   
   looking at over a given period.   
      
   Finally, there is a "cleaned up" central pixel coded as PDCFLUX.  This   
   is meant to be a quality controlled and noise-reduced version of the   
   central pixel flux and may be worth a look given we have looked at the   
   main central pixel data anyway.   
      
   The s/w has crunched through the 13000 frames for each 10x10 deg   
   section of the sky (the TESS image itself is around 14x14 deg which   
   each pixel around 26 arc seconds across) for the primary pixel flux   
   and also the background area around the primary pixel for each   
   star. I've only downloaded 3000 FITS files so far -- must over 1/2 the   
   available data.  Data is still being gathered and some of the later   
   data in my download is only a couple months old.   
      
   The movie of the sky as determined by the central flux of several   
   stars allocated to each 10x10 deg tile is at   
   .  As described before, it shows some   
   odd features including twinkling over regions of the sky that seem in   
   excess of the variation or extent that should be seen with average   
   stars. It's as if most stars in each section of the sky are seeing   
   planetary transits "all the time" when we otherwise know they are   
   kinda rare.   
      
   But the more unusual features are the bright and dark regions that   
   pop up from time to time suggesting large numbers of stars across   
   e.g. 100x100 deg regions of the sky dim or brighten roughly together.   
   This should not be possible. Such patterns suggest something is coming   
   between that central star pixel and the camera -- either "somethings"   
   brighter and sometimes much brighter than normal variations for each   
   star, or much dimmer than normal variations.   
      
   Some bright objects might be mundane objects like comets. Some "dark"   
   objects might even be small asteroids or meteors that are moving in   
   the earth-moon region. But their number seems excessive and their   
   movements don't seem consistent with objects in orbit around the sun.   
   They seem equally likely to move from left to right as right to left,   
   for example.   
      
   But view the movie and see what you think. We already know that the   
   brightness (central pixel flux) of many regions of sky vary   
   statistically very much like some types of UFO activity as reported in   
   the NUFORC database.  As covered elsewhere, we can even determine that   
   time-shifted UFO activity matches even better brightness variations as   
   seen by TESS for many stars advanced by several days and also retarded   
   by several days.  It's as if TESS sees a group of stars brighten or   
   dim, several days later that corresponds to some change in report UFO   
   activity, then several days after that there is another change in star   
   brightness in the same part of the sky.   
      
   The new parts of the data show similar and somewhat consistent patterns.   
      
   The "background" data has been through the same pipeline as the   
   central pixel fluxes and the movie is here:   
   .   
      
   Given this data looks at more pixels we "see more". Variation over   
   large regions of the sky is rampant. Large regions brighten and darken   
   together at different times. It's like the first movie, but on steroids.   
      
   The 3rd movie is still coming off the pipeline but there will be   
   preliminary versions updated every couple hrs for the next day or so.   
   That movie is at .   
      
   The dataset is a "cleaned up" version of the central flux data.  It's   
   meant to reduced noise and allow processing of the resulting values   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)   

[   << oldest   |   < older   |   list   |   newer >   |   newest >>   ]


(c) 1994,  bbs@darkrealms.ca