Is This A Discovery?

Or Why It's Probably A Good Idea To Take A Closer Look At Your Images Sooner Rather Than Later

Well, much has transpired since the last entry; we've traveled to middle Georgia to work at a children's home for 3 weeks, and I've managed to come down with an autoimmune disease for starters. That will severely limit my activities for a while. On the up side, however, I've looked at one of my images taken in February and found something interesting; or is it?

M108, mine on left, compared to Palomar DSS on right showing "star" in circle

This is the area around M108 taken the night of February 5^th. Hopefully, you noticed there are two images. Mine is the one on the left, the other is one taken by the Palomar 48 inch Schmidt telescope (which is 6 times bigger than my scope and collects 36 times more light). Notice also the circle I've drawn on both. On my image, there appears to be a “star” which is absent in the Palomar image. So, what did I find? Anything? Some possibilities are 1) a nova (or supernova), possibly, 2) an asteroid passing through the neighborhood, 3)a cosmic ray hitting the camera, or 4) ???? It is quite dim, on the order of 18^th magnitude or so. On close examination, the “star” is one pixel wide, and 2 high. That implies, somewhat, that it probably is not a cosmic ray strike. But what else? If I had found this sooner, I could have re imaged the area quickly. If it were an asteroid, it would have moved. But, M108 is nowhere near the asteroid belt, so probably not that. If it were a nova, it would still be there, most likely, since they seem to stick around for about 3 months or so. Cosmic ray hit; not likely to get exactly the same pixel two nights in a row. We will never know what this is, unless another astronomer just happened to have imaged the same area, seen the same thing and reported it and it has been tracked down.

Lesson learned.