Re: Planet X on CNN
In Article <LyqR6.4277$Ke.767997@typhoon.hawaii.rr.com> David Tholen wrote:
> Steve Havas writes:
>> The dark, diffuse or 'fuzzy' object I saw was in the
>> upper right corner near the edge of view.
>
> Could easily be a lens flare.
Same lens flare at three different observatories, one from FRANCE, one
from VANCOUVER, and one from FLAGSTAFF, all on different dates? All
three looking at the moving coordinates given by a woman who would not
know what end of a scope to look into, to the 5th and 6th decimal place.
RA 5.16784 Dec 16.57943 on February 15, 2001
Wed, 07 Feb 2001 (France)
The Neuchatel observatory got it. They are very excited,
wondering if it is a comet or a brown dwarf, through the
latest coordinates you gave.
RA 5.151245 Dec 16.55743 on April 1, 2001
Wed, 04 Apr 2001 (Flagstaff)
Lo and behold, there appeared a faint blip not too far off
center. I looked long and hard but wasn't sure if I was
imagining it or not. I asked a friend who had come along
to take a look and told him what to look for. He said he
maybe saw something. I asked the operator if he would
look in the same fashion. He looked carefully for a couple
of minutes and confirmed what I saw. I took another
look to satisfy myself. Yes, there was definitely something
there. I had the operator center the telescope on the faint
object so that we could get the coordinates more
precisely and then I checked a third time to make sure
we were talking about the same thing. We were; the elusive
blip was centered now.
RA 5.143675 Dec 16.421739 on April 15, 2001
Sun, 8 Apr 2001 (Vancouver)
Near the center I see nothing that I think looks like
[Planet X] (just a couple stars) but at the very top right
corner if I moved my head I could see what appeared
to be a darkish, diffuse, round spot, fairly large
If that's a coincidence, what about the coincidence that after the first
sighting, the next two observatories had scafolding blocking the scope
so that it supposedly could not be turned to seach the skies at the
coordinates (thought the persistent found a way around that block).
Wed, 04 Apr 2001 (Flagstaff)
On the night of Sunday April 1st 2001, I reserved the
historic Clark 24" telescope at the Lowell observatory in
Flagstaff, AZ, for my own private viewing. As it turns
out, the telescope operator was unable to point the Clark in
the direction of Orion because there was a scaffold in the
way which only the operator's supervisor was allowed
to move. ... In any event the operator was determined
to give me my money's worth and he opened up the
McAllister telescope, a newer but smaller scope with a 16"
mirror (f3 primary, f18 system, built in 1963). We
trained the big do-hickey on the Coordinates given
for April 1 2001:
Sun, 8 Apr 2001 (Vancouver)
I called the observatory around 7:30 and spoke to some
guy and asked if it was okay to look at a object near
the constellation Orion. He said that there was some
large pipe that had been placed in front of the observatory
and was not sure if he could swing the telescope in that
direction but that we might be able to see something.