close-up studies of unusual "dark pulses" seen by TESS

[MrPosti...@kymhorsell.com]

We've prev looked at various unusual patterns seen by the TESS space
telescope orbiting between earth and moon every 2 wks.

We've looked at the 3 main datastreams from the telescope group that
is monitoring a list of stars for possible planetary transits. The
TESS telescope outputs large format images that are boiled down to
time series for each target star showing the "central pixel flux", the
"background flux", and a "processed central flux" for each target.
The full 30 MB images for each frame are also available at the what
was once the Hubble telescope site stsci.edu but now handles many more
instruments.

Before doing more detailed detective work I've now concentrated on
only those events that involve target stars or their background
darkening synchronously over large parts of the sky. The initial
"mental model" for these events is object or objects passing between
the target stars (or their backgrounds) and the position of the
telescope at the time.

The interest for dark events is that the level of the darkening allows
us to guesstimate the angular diameter of the suspected object, and
thence to a size/distance relationship that can be further boiled down
to a suspected diameter in meters if the object is at the "most
likely" distance inside the earth-moon region -- a number roughly
200-300,000 km away (I normally choose the lwb here).

I've set up a few more plots for those interested. At
<kymhorsell.com/UFO/ufo2020.gif> is the up-to-date plot of the UFO
sightings recorded as of a few days ago at the NUFORC.
(I thank them again for their almost tireless work in keeping the site
up-to-date and making the raw data 100% available. Unlike some govt
agencies I could name. ;)

The UFO plot shows ostensible variations in sightings over the years
2006-2022. The date 2006 is critical in the NUFORC database -- it was
the year a web reporting form first became widely used. The ease of
reporting sightings meant about 10x more people came forward to make
reports. But it also changed the distribution of characteristics
reported, making it problematic to compare directly the years before
2006 and those since.

The TESS data is generally kept under <kymhorsell.com/UFO/TESS/> but
at present that TLD is blocked from bot searchers so will appear blank.

The files of interest to the gentle reader at present include
<...dark.gif> which is a plot of the darkest tile in each 2.4 hr
period between 2018-2022 for which I've downloaded the TESS data. It
shows many tiles (i.e. 10x10 deg squares in the sky between RA 0-360
deg and Dec -90 to +90 deg) darken to -1% or 10%, but also relatively
many darken to -10%, -20% or even darker. The daynumber after 01 Jan
2015 runs along the X axis and may prove useful to decode time
references in TESS data.

While the full movie is still processing on "baby" out in the garage,
some initial slow-motion movies of individual dark pulses are
available at <...darkpulse1.mp4>, <...darkpulse2.mp4>, and
<...darkpulse3.mp4>. From the above GIF we can see there are many
more pulses out there to choose from.

Looking at the 3 pulses listed we see 2 involve apparently the
origin. A dark line is seen extending between 0,0 and some -ve
declination around RA 100 deg. RA 0 is of course the origin of Right
Ascensions. In the system used in TESS data this is the location of
the Spring equinox relative to the distant quasars used to establish
the relevant coord system (ICRS).

We see in the first pulse a spread of darkening that apparently
happens within a single 2.4 hr period. There is some possible
"warning" flashing nearby but the whole region suddenly turns dark in
a single timestep.

The 2nd pulse seems similar to the first except we see the origin of
the darkening is at -ve Decl and the destination is 0,0. It seems --
maybe -- we are seeing an object move from the region of the S
celestial pole to the ecliptic, but in the opposite direction of all
the planets. (In the plots we see various digits and the letters "m"
and "S" moving around. The digits are JPL Horizon's number for the
various planets in the MVEMJSUNP order. We see the "m" moves left to
right i.e. E during its 28-day orbit; other planets should be moving
in the same direction. Mostly :). Positions are updated only every 5d
to reduce the digital crunching).

The 3rd pulse is similar again but in a different region. It seems to
"predict" where the moon will be and the dark region extends from the
S somewhere to the eventual location of the moon near the ecliptic
(i.e. Dec 0) at some point during the pulse.

The full-length movie will pop out in the same dir eventually with
name moviedark.mp4.

It seems just from a prelim survey these pulse neither correspond with
variation in star brightness (e.g. flaring or variability or transits)
nor do they seem to be asteroids or similar objects crossing between
the various stars and TESS. They move in the wrong direction or come
from odd locations wrt the solar system. They may even suggest powered
orbits.

Execution proceeds.

--
"I think some of the phenomena we're going to be seeing continues to be
unexplained and might, in fact, be some type of phenomenon that is the
result of something that we don't yet understand."
--Ex-CIA Director John Brennan

Unidentified aerial phenomena I. Observations of events
B.E. Zhilyaev, V. N. Petukhov, V. M. Reshetnyk
Main Astronomical Observatory, NAS of Ukraine,
Zabalotnoho 27, 03680, Kyiv, Ukraine
[...] We present a broad range of UAPs. We see them everywhere. We observe a
significant number of objects whose nature is not clear. Flights of single,
group and squadrons of the ships were detected, moving at speeds from 3 to
15 degrees per second. Some bright objects exhibit regular brightness
variability in the range of 10 - 20 Hz. Two-site observations of UAPs at a
base of 120 km with 2 synchronised cameras allowed the detection of
a variable object, at an altitude of 1170 km. It flashes for one hundredth
of a second at an average of 20 Hz. [...]
An object contrast makes it possible to estimate the distance using
colourimetric methods. [Objects with 0 albedo] are observed in the
troposphere at distances up to 10-12 km. We estimate their size from 3 to 12
meters and speeds up to 15 km/s. [...]
[Astronomers in Ukraine have undertaken their own independent survey
of objects they see flying over the Kyiv region at speeds around 15 km/sec.
They are watching the daytime sky at the zenith and in front of the moon.
They see many objects -- some bright and some dark, different sizes.
They travel often singly but sometimes in large groups.
They report brightness is linked with speed. Objects have been spotted
in the atm but also out to ~1000 km above the earth, travelling up to
~1000 km/sec.
They are not likely anything sent by Russia or any other country].

The Search for Intelligent Life Is About to Get a Lot More Interesting
The New York Times, 15 Sep 2022 09:43Z
[Webb images to be used to search for "atmospheric bio-signatures" of
"distant planets"].

[The Ratterfly Effect:]
Rat forces supply ship into quarantine as food runs low on Lord Howe Island
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[3rd Time Lucky!]
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