On sci.astro. Nancy was on one more time, spamming like usual.

One thing I was hoping you more observant observers could maybe help me with. Now, hear me out.

I went through Astronomy 101 in college, and so I am not even at amateur level. In this class, we had to purchase software, "The Sky" to be exact. Well, I blew the dust off the disks (disks!! how ancient!) and installed them on my new computer. I've been looking with this software of where Nancy's coordinates are.

I think I can think in the same terms as the people who follow Nancy. They are truly hoping to believe her, and are not at any higher level of understanding of the night sky than I am. When I hear Nancy's coordinates, I want to know - "Ok - which direction is she talking about? I don't have a telescope, I can't find any RAs and dec's! About where should it be?

So when I look, like I would guess about 99.9% of her followers, I look in a direction, not at precise coordinate.

They are looking around Aldebaran. Even though Nancy claims her eye sightings are not Aldebaran because she has told over and over what the exact location is, and it is not where Aldebaran is, I just know that these people are just looking in a general direction.

Aldebaran is in the general direction, and is reddish. And bright!

One of her followers said per sci.astro:
Very scientific!

Anyway, I was trying to find some good images of Aldebaran so I could see just how red it appeared to these people.

<-link edited out->

Anyway, here were a couple more of her scientific "proofs" that she cited that PX was coming:

hmmm - I live close to there - there hasn't been a clear night in a *very* long time - wonder when this was spotted. There is also a lot of light pollution around this area too. Interesting this person could see all the moons too - when the "team" can barely make them out with their observatory grade telescopes.

Anyway, I know most people on here are more astronomically educated. Me? I took a whole lot of sociology classes, and have a good finger on the pulse of the average person. And an even better finger on the people who need something to validate their lives.

I feel that most of these people go out really quick, look in the general area, and then think that by seeing a star that they've never noticed before (becasue they've never really looked at the night sky in the cold of early spring) that they are part of the small club that has the knowledge of the coming of the end of the world. If they believed enough to not be lazy about it, they wouldn't be on their computers - they would be getting themselves and their loved ones the heck outta the house to start digging their trench. They won't even do this, so I doubt they are going to take the time to educate themselves on Ascension and declination before going out and looking.

This is the end of my (almost) daily rant on the subject. I know, myself, who has always been fascinated by the sky would hear coordinates, but really just look around the general area of where it should be.

And one last note: on the zetatalk website:

- then followed by the coordinates.

Sounds like a nice cop-out for these people who think they are seeing something.

Girl 101

edited to shorten url....but it still won't work...! (and I code HTML all day long. So - forget the url - it is on space.com. ) I hope that doesn't violate the rules of editing posts!

Girl 101:

Do this with the url:


[url:http://www.blah.com] text [/url]

Make our lives easier.

Thanks :-)

Is that image PX or not?

first off...No, that is not Planet X.

and Girl101, yes that bright dot to the right of the meteor is aldebaran.
From where I can look into the sky, Orion is pretty low on the horizon and the light polution from the city is right in my way. unless I let my eyes adapt to the dark, when I look at taurus, all I can see is aldeberon, I can't even make out the other stars of the V shape. so if I was to go out and just glance at the sky I would see Orion, and then glance to the right and see a big bright red dot. also this time of year, saturn is just above aldebaran, and is also a very bright dot in the sky. to me saturn looks yellowish, but it can still be confused for planet X. one way to tell if what you are looking at is a planet or a star is that stars twinkle, but planets don't. also, go observe for a few nights and familiarize yourself with the sky in that area. you'll notice that saturn moves pretty fast. after a few nights you'll notice the movement. IF there was a planet X it would be moving a lot faster than saturn and would be really noticable. Aldebaran will not move at all relative to the other stars in the area. I'm just a novice as well with just an astronomy 101 class, but I do use skyview cafe http://www.skyviewcafe.com and it is very handy for learning the night sky.

sorry for the long confusing post, but I hope it helps. [/quote]

girl101 (any relation to Girl6 on the JREF board?)...

Check out the Planet X Observer's Thread in here...I did the same basic stuff with Starry Night Backyard. You can get a good enough idea of where it ought to be to get an azimuth and an elevation for any particular time...and seeing (pun intended) as how PX is supposed to be daylight naked-eye visible, at night it ought to stick out like a Rolls-Royce on a Yugo used car lot...fer cryin' out loud, it should be a bloody SPOTLIGHT in the night skies by now...if it were there...which it ain't...

As far as astronomy programs go, I sorta did the same thing with RedShift 2 and Distant Suns 5.2 to get either RA/Dec or az/el...but outside after dark, PX should be plainly and obviously visible, apparent, and attention-getting...if it were there...did I mention that it ain't? :wink:

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Not. That image is a video of a Leonid meteor. The brightest objects you see on the right are Jupiter (brightest) Saturn (below and right) and Aldebaran (right by where the meteor fireball begins). The bright stars on the left are the constellation Orion, of which you can see about 6 of the stars, including the famous belt.

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http://signaturedigitalimages.com

I think people are confusing what I meant with that video. The metoer has nothing to do with it - I was talking about the stars surrounding it, "blinking" - as in correlation of the email I quoted from one of Nancy's followers. Although I could see Nancy seeing that video and claiming it as another piece of evidence - thinking that someone captured a video of planet x flying through the sky...

What I was trying to convey was the fact that most of her followers do just that - follow. They don't look at coordinates, they just look in the "general area". They are probably people who never have paid much attention to the sky. Then they see a bright star, that is reddish in the general area. They think, "It's PX!" and email Nancy with a sighting, which she then spams sci.astro with.

Just another reason I don't believe that anyone is seeing this.

That's all.



Girl 101

(and no, no relation to Girl 6 - isn't she the one that was at that conference with the Bad Astronomer? I wish I were her - I'd love to meet him! )

Absolutely. All winter long, when the coordinates were visible for the majority of the night, no one was looking but us amateur astronomers (and no, I didn't go out of my way - that area of the sky is filled with enough things to look at to last a lifetime). All the followers wouldn't dare the cold of the winter night to go out and aquaint themselves with the stars, planets and winter constellations, or travel out to the country to get away from light pollution.

The difference is that we go out, no matter how cold, or how deep the snow is, or how big the mosquitos are, or if the dew is running of the scopes like a water hose. As long as the skies are transparent and steady, we'll be out there observing. While the Zeta followers are all snug in their beds having nightmares about a planet that doesn't exist, we're out there observing the Universe around us.

Now they're out there claiming to see things that many of us have been looking at since we were children. I make it a point to get my kids out (lots of times they drag me out, because they'd rather look through the dob or the SCT than their little ETX 125) so that they can learn something - and not be taken in by hoaxes like this.

And yep, Nancy got her monthly shots at Jim Scotti, Dave Tholen, myself and a few others on sci.astro. Too bad she never reads the replies. The only reason she posts there is to copy and paste the post into her "sci.astro debates" section on her website. A one sided debate.

As for that Hawaii photo, she verified the claim that it was taken at 12:15am - long after the coordinates were well below the horizon in Hawaii on March 31st. Another image shot down.

Girl101 - save a little money and get yourself a Short tube 80 or a nice 8" dob, you sound like you'd enjoy getting into the hobby.

Girl 101 wrote:

Where there is significant scintillation - You can be certain you are NOT viewing a planet! - Scintillation is a property of light sources (e.g. stars) as opposed to reflectors (e.g. planets, satellites, asteroids, etc.) Polarization being one of several factors...

Best Regards
Sarandon

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My formula for success is never to talk about a successful formula, because it's bound to go wrong!

I have a Celestron - I lugged it all the way across the state from my mother's house to discover that the tripod is broken. Talk about lazy - I really should get it fixed.

When I was a kid I would find constellations constantly - it was a little hobby to me, and I can still find most of my favorites. But yes, I want to see Saturn through a telescope sometime in my life.

Well, I'm going to Hawaii in 26 days, actually (not that I'm counting or anything...). I promise to take many pictures with my digital camera. Although - after owning one for so long, I find it really hard to believe that a digi can take reliable pictures of stars - of any size or color. When I want to take detailed or close up pictures of anything, especially when the light is low, I use my regular film camera. I can't understand how anyone could point a camera up at the sky and *click*! Oh look, there's a star! I find THAT highly susceptible! (and I have a good camera, with high resolution).

I just feel that anyone who seems to look forward to this - to hope it happens, and believes everything they hear from a woman who says she knows all from an alien implant in her head doesn't want to know the truth. They don't want to learn to operate a telescope and see this thing.

The people who are scared about this and don't want this to happen are the ones who will question and (if they haven't already) realize who's telling the truth.

Girl 101

You know, I remembered hearing that once before, but wasn't sure enough to post 'round these parts. So, that means you can throw out about 1/3 of the sightings that Nancy has claimed to have recieved from followers - that it "blinks", "disappears then reappears" (another way to say "blink"...)

You can also throw out the one from the guy with the lawnchair binocular set since he has asked Nancy to take it off her site because he realized he made a mistake...

You can also throw out the Hawaii sighting, as PX would've been below the horizon at the time Nancy says it was taken (good one Sarah!).

I also question the one from Washington State that says that they were able to see PX and the moons.... yet it's been overcast here overnight for at least a week and a half, maybe two (and when it isn't cloudy, it is foggy at night...)

So, she's left with the guy from Uruguay who says (and I quote) "Looks like the object is morphing into another shape!", the Argentinian sighting, "Fantastic! Unbelievable! Hevenly!" and "Now I realize why we are at war!".

heh

Girl 101

Yeah, and that guy's name is Lara! ROFLOL!!!

Very best regards
D. Sarandon

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My formula for success is never to talk about a successful formula, because it's bound to go wrong!

SarahMc --Are you the same SaraMc who is mentioned on Skepticalmind? If you are, all I can say is "thank you" for the diatribes and rants you gave right back to Nancy! If not, I've enjoyed your posts and wit nonetheless.

That's "SarahMc," not "SaraMc." Nancy just mispelled it on sci.astro

PS Is it actually "misspelled?"

Our host says it's a result of point-sources versus disc-sources . . .

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SeanF

"Ask to understand, but don't challenge unless you have the knowledge."--NEOWatcher

The contents of this post are ©2008 by SeanF and may not be copied or retransmitted in any form without the express written consent of SeanF

Yep, that's me. I'm in the top ten on Nancy's hit list.

Thanks for the kind words, and you're welcome - but if you go back over the archives of sci.astro, you'll find that there are hundreds if people who've spoken up as much as I. Most of them have much more experience and education in astronomy than myself. I'm probably more notorious because Nancy seemed to think I was going to be a "timid" adversary, and attacked me on a more personal and regular basis with the hopes that I'd be silenced by intimidation.

If atmospheric tubulence is very heavy, even planets can twinkle, but as a general rule of thumb, only stars do. The BA's link is very good at explaining it.

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Yes, PLEASE go back and do this. The thread is very hard to read right now because it goes so far off the screen.

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