Veil Nebula 31 May 08

Dave_Lillis wrote:

I'm not yet convinced that this is reflection.

The bright core with the diffuse halo is giving me heartburn too. I would have a thought a reflection was just a diffuse blob. Unless the core is an existing star... But I couldn't see anything in TheSky.

Some test shots with the setup might be a help at least to see if it produces reflections in general, and if so, do they look like the image posted.

I just did a search on "Veil Nebula 31 May 2009"
and got one hit thus far
www.wunderground.com/wximage/viewsinglei...&gallery=CURRWEATHER

I don't see the object here - but others may have more luck.

There's an amateur somewhere in the world that has also imaged this region in a window of time that allows for verification.
I suggest some searches for other amateur images.

Mark

I've done a bit of digging. The MPCs comet checker shows nothing, I also check Aladin and can find no fixed object. The bad news is if that really were something its long gone by now. John the interesting experiment will be to repeat the shot and see it it shows up again.

TBH I'm very inclined to favour the ghost reflection theory. The key is that it is on the opposite side of centre from the bright star. There was a long discussion about this very thing on the minor planet mailing list recently and even some big observatories have been fooled by internal reflections. In fact I've seen something very similar when I was working with a similar setup.

Even if it were something there is absolutely nothing that can be done with one position. I know the MPC will not entertain anything less than two positions and usually require at least three.

John in case this is something you could try surveying that area. Just maybe if it is real and a slow mover you might just get lucky but I might as well be honest, it would very likely be a long way away from that position by now. I tried linking the position with recently discovered comet and there is no fit with any of them. It would be really annoying if in the near future, a new comet was announced and this could be linked to it because then its too late.

John are there absolutely no other images of that area from that night. Even focusing shots?

Hi Dave

Unfortunately I only took the one shot before moving over to the other side of the veil. The camera was already focused from imaging M13-I took no focus shots in that region. (Damn live view anyway : angry: )

DaveGrennan wrote:

.

TBH I'm very inclined to favour the ghost reflection theory. The key is that it is on the opposite side of centre from the bright star. There was a long discussion about this very thing on the minor planet mailing list recently and even some big observatories have been fooled by internal reflections. In fact I've seen something very similar when I was working with a similar setup.
?

As the image was an unguided shot there is some tracking error. If you zoom in you can see the tracking error. If you look at the close up of the "object" it appears that the tracking error is reversed (or mirrored compared to nearby stars) which would suggestion a reflection. You may be right Dave.

yea, if you look closely at the zoomed in image you put up John you can see that the wobble shape of the stars are all the same, our mysterious object has a different orientation but it is the same shape, this is a reflection .