MMO = Maria Mitchell Observatory, for anyone else wondering (who hadn't clicked thru to twitter, above).
An important development I think.QuoteJason Wright@Astro_WrightMichael Castelaz finds MMO photometry supports Schaefer claim of century-long dimming of #TabbysStar@tsboyajian @hippkehttps://mobile.twitter.com/Astro_Wright/status/951490197132337153
Jason Wright@Astro_WrightMichael Castelaz finds MMO photometry supports Schaefer claim of century-long dimming of #TabbysStar@tsboyajian @hippke
My money is currently on Bruce Gary’s solution especially now his predictions are starting to pan out.
Quote from: Star One on 01/03/2018 07:32 pmMy money is currently on Bruce Gary’s solution especially now his predictions are starting to pan out.He's been making lots of predictions, nearly all of which did not pan out.
Quote from: ChrisWilson68 on 01/14/2018 07:14 pmQuote from: Star One on 01/03/2018 07:32 pmMy money is currently on Bruce Gary’s solution especially now his predictions are starting to pan out.He's been making lots of predictions, nearly all of which did not pan out.Both your statements are disingenuous to Mr Gary.
Are you going to add anything constructive or just snipe at people actually trying to come up with a solution.
Quote from: Star One on 01/14/2018 08:36 pmAre you going to add anything constructive or just snipe at people actually trying to come up with a solution.You claimed Bruce Gary's "predictions are starting to pan out". I thought that was a misleading characterization of his record of predictions, so I replied stating my opinion.That's what a discussion is -- people offering different opinions. I thought yours was incorrect and offered a contrasting one. Readers can make up their own minds.In reply, you could have offered evidence to back up your opinion. Instead, you accused me of lying and sniping, said I wasn't being constructive, and said I should leave this forum and go to Twitter.I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to decide which one of us is the less constructive party in this discussion.
Read this thread about Mr Gary’s paper.https://www.reddit.com/r/KIC8462852/comments/7fkc8t/kic_8462852_potential_repeat_of_the_kepler_day/
Quote from: Star One on 01/14/2018 10:12 pmRead this thread about Mr Gary’s paper.https://www.reddit.com/r/KIC8462852/comments/7fkc8t/kic_8462852_potential_repeat_of_the_kepler_day/The link to Mr. Gary's paper says they predict a RV change on the order of 1-2 km/s. ( enormous!) Yet the lastest update from Jason Wright's blog says that RV measurement from Keck/HiRise showed no RV change. I don't think it is stated if the November dip is the basis for this null result on the RV, & if B.Gary predicted an observable RV change in Oct/Nov 2017, he has had an opportunity to make that observation & report the result.
Unfortunately Bruce was in a bad car accident recently. He escaped serious injury but needs time to recover. Hopefully his health improves in the near future.
A new study of the long-term photometric behavior of the the unusual star KIC 8462852 (Boyajian's Star) has been carried out using archival photographic plates from 1922-1991 taken at the Maria Mitchell Observatory (MMO). We find five episodes of sudden, several day, decreases in magnitude occurring in 1935, 1966, 1978, and two in 1980. Episodes of sudden increase in magnitude appear to occur in 1967 and 1977. Inspection of archival light curves of KIC 8462852 from two previous studies based on the Harvard and the Sonneberg plate collections finds apparent corresponding events to these observed episodes in the MMO light curve. Also, a general trend of 0.12±0.02 magnitudes per century decrease is observed in the MMO light curve, significant, but less than the trend of 0.164±0.013 observed in the Harvard light curve.
A faint star located 2 arcsec from KIC 8462852 was discovered in Keck 10 m adaptive optics imaging in the JHK near-infrared (NIR) in 2014 by Boyajian et al. (2016). The closeness of the star to KIC 8462852 suggested the two could constitute a binary, which might have implications for the cause of the brightness dips seen by {\it Kepler} (Boyajian et al. (2016) and in ground-based optical studies Boyajian et al. (2018). Here, NIR imaging in 2017 using the Mimir instrument resolved the pair and enabled measuring their separation. The faint star had moved 67±7 milliarcsec (mas) relative to KIC 8462852 since 2014. The relative proper motion of the faint star is 23.9±2.6 mas yr−1, for a tangential velocity of 45±5 km s−1 if it is at the same 390 pc distance as KIC 8462852. Circular velocity at the 750 AU current projected separation is 1.5 km s−1, hence the star pair cannot be bound.
On Friday (2018 March 16) we noted the last data taken were significantly down compared to normal. Due to poor weather conditions at all 3 sites we weren't able to observe the star again until last night... This is the deepest dip we have observed since the Kepler Mission in 2013! WOW!!
Does anyone happen to have time tonight or very soon on a telescope with an IR camera? Out to 5 microns, preferably? Asking for a friend who is @tsboyajian
OK folks, I TRIPLE DOG DARE you to show there is an IR excess.