I'm wondering how much of a dip would be significant enough to observe with the naked eye. Obviously a 2% dimming won't be enough. I have experience observing eclipsing binaries with an 8" telescope and Tabby's star apparently has dimmed as much as >20% in the past.
If it follows the sequence we should next see a dip to 8% and over a number of days a return to nominal.
Quote from: Star One on 06/18/2017 09:37 pmIf it follows the sequence we should next see a dip to 8% and over a number of days a return to nominal.If we are indeed seeing the prelude to the previous large 8% drop, then what the heck happened to the 22% drop that should have preceded it by a couple of months or thereabouts? Half the world was watching it during this period (a slight overstatement for dramatic effect). Did they just miss it?
Quote from: M.E.T. on 06/18/2017 09:46 pmQuote from: Star One on 06/18/2017 09:37 pmIf it follows the sequence we should next see a dip to 8% and over a number of days a return to nominal.If we are indeed seeing the prelude to the previous large 8% drop, then what the heck happened to the 22% drop that should have preceded it by a couple of months or thereabouts? Half the world was watching it during this period (a slight overstatement for dramatic effect). Did they just miss it?I thought that might be explained by it being hard to observe at that time, wasn't it badly placed in the sky for observation?
Quote from: Star One on 06/18/2017 09:48 pmQuote from: M.E.T. on 06/18/2017 09:46 pmQuote from: Star One on 06/18/2017 09:37 pmIf it follows the sequence we should next see a dip to 8% and over a number of days a return to nominal.If we are indeed seeing the prelude to the previous large 8% drop, then what the heck happened to the 22% drop that should have preceded it by a couple of months or thereabouts? Half the world was watching it during this period (a slight overstatement for dramatic effect). Did they just miss it?I thought that might be explained by it being hard to observe at that time, wasn't it badly placed in the sky for observation?Ok. I wasn't aware of that. Are you aware of the speculation about the various dips being multiples of one another, basically hypothesizing a number of fixed configuration swarms that sometimes overlap and sometimes don't, in our line of sight, leading to different sized dips depending on where they are in their individual orbits? In which case the big 22% dip would represent a number of these swarms happening to appear next to each other in our line of sight, to cumulatively block out a massive 22% of the star's light. This alignment might not occur at a set frequency, or even to exactly the same extent again, if the individual swarms are in different orbits. Perhaps not even on the same orbital plane and we just happen to catch whichever bits of each swarm happwn to cross our line of sight at any given point in time.
Quote from: M.E.T. on 06/18/2017 09:58 pmQuote from: Star One on 06/18/2017 09:48 pmQuote from: M.E.T. on 06/18/2017 09:46 pmQuote from: Star One on 06/18/2017 09:37 pmIf it follows the sequence we should next see a dip to 8% and over a number of days a return to nominal.If we are indeed seeing the prelude to the previous large 8% drop, then what the heck happened to the 22% drop that should have preceded it by a couple of months or thereabouts? Half the world was watching it during this period (a slight overstatement for dramatic effect). Did they just miss it?I thought that might be explained by it being hard to observe at that time, wasn't it badly placed in the sky for observation?Ok. I wasn't aware of that. Are you aware of the speculation about the various dips being multiples of one another, basically hypothesizing a number of fixed configuration swarms that sometimes overlap and sometimes don't, in our line of sight, leading to different sized dips depending on where they are in their individual orbits? In which case the big 22% dip would represent a number of these swarms happening to appear next to each other in our line of sight, to cumulatively block out a massive 22% of the star's light. This alignment might not occur at a set frequency, or even to exactly the same extent again, if the individual swarms are in different orbits. Perhaps not even on the same orbital plane and we just happen to catch whichever bits of each swarm happwn to cross our line of sight at any given point in time.I think it's dangerous to speculate numerically myself. The thing that bothers me is if for the sake of wild speculation it was an ETI why would we expect to find a pattern we'd recognise?By the way have you see that Astrophysicist and Sci Fi author Gregory Benford has stated on FB: "Fits no good model. A real mystery."
Quote from: Star One on 06/18/2017 10:04 pmQuote from: M.E.T. on 06/18/2017 09:58 pmQuote from: Star One on 06/18/2017 09:48 pmQuote from: M.E.T. on 06/18/2017 09:46 pmQuote from: Star One on 06/18/2017 09:37 pmIf it follows the sequence we should next see a dip to 8% and over a number of days a return to nominal.If we are indeed seeing the prelude to the previous large 8% drop, then what the heck happened to the 22% drop that should have preceded it by a couple of months or thereabouts? Half the world was watching it during this period (a slight overstatement for dramatic effect). Did they just miss it?I thought that might be explained by it being hard to observe at that time, wasn't it badly placed in the sky for observation?Ok. I wasn't aware of that. Are you aware of the speculation about the various dips being multiples of one another, basically hypothesizing a number of fixed configuration swarms that sometimes overlap and sometimes don't, in our line of sight, leading to different sized dips depending on where they are in their individual orbits? In which case the big 22% dip would represent a number of these swarms happening to appear next to each other in our line of sight, to cumulatively block out a massive 22% of the star's light. This alignment might not occur at a set frequency, or even to exactly the same extent again, if the individual swarms are in different orbits. Perhaps not even on the same orbital plane and we just happen to catch whichever bits of each swarm happwn to cross our line of sight at any given point in time.I think it's dangerous to speculate numerically myself. The thing that bothers me is if for the sake of wild speculation it was an ETI why would we expect to find a pattern we'd recognise?By the way have you see that Astrophysicist and Sci Fi author Gregory Benford has stated on FB: "Fits no good model. A real mystery."Not sure what you mean by a recognizeable pattern. I'm not suggesting the pattern is deliberate. We would simply be observing whichever such objects coincidentally crossed our line of sight.
Yeah sorry I should of been clearer. Put it down to being infuriated by people posting online thinking little green men are sending us numerical signals. (I kid not).
Quote from: Star One on 06/18/2017 10:15 pmYeah sorry I should of been clearer. Put it down to being infuriated by people posting online thinking little green men are sending us numerical signals. (I kid not).Ah, ok. No, nothing like that. Just objects in different orbits, aligning at times, and not at other times. From our vantage point.
Quote from: M.E.T. on 06/18/2017 10:26 pmQuote from: Star One on 06/18/2017 10:15 pmYeah sorry I should of been clearer. Put it down to being infuriated by people posting online thinking little green men are sending us numerical signals. (I kid not).Ah, ok. No, nothing like that. Just objects in different orbits, aligning at times, and not at other times. From our vantage point.I don't think we are going to easily solve this star though if it does have strict repeats and periodicity that may give us clues. If nothing else for now it shows Kepler produced good data for it which refutes the claims of certain people who were not just casting doubt on it but the teams behind it.
Speculation is that the current dip is like the d1540 dip in the Kepler data not d1568 as was initially thought. Meaning we should get the 8% dip next month if there is indeed a repeating pattern.
Quote from: Star One on 06/20/2017 07:29 amSpeculation is that the current dip is like the d1540 dip in the Kepler data not d1568 as was initially thought. Meaning we should get the 8% dip next month if there is indeed a repeating pattern.Star OneYou seem to have followed the discussion about this star quite closely over time, so maybe you can help me out. What is the current theory about why so many of the dips appear to be preceded by a brief increase in luminosity?I mean, the idea of a reflective body on the opposite side of the star causing the luminosity to increase may be plausible at random times, but why would it coincide so closely with dips that follow immediately thereafter? Is there any theory that explains this in plausible fashion as yet?