Testing the TYCHOS - stellar parallax and all

[simonshack]

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ESA'S "EXPLANATIONS" FOR THE OBSERVED NEGATIVE (OR ZERO) PARALLAXES


A Swedish veteran astronomer, Paul, who has been vigorously "attacking" the TYCHOS model (over an e-mail group discussion) for the last year or so, has agreed that NEGATIVE parallaxes (within the Copernican model) are obviously unphysical and thus, could not exist. As far as I can gather, Paul contends that the reason for ESA's largest stellar parallax catalogue (named "Tycho") containing 25% of NEGATIVE parallaxes, 50% of ZERO parallaxes and 25% of POSITIVE parallaxes is thus explained : those unphysical NEGATIVES (and ZERO) values are nothing but observational errors caused by a series of problems that plagued ESA's "Hipparcos satellite", back in the 1990's. According to Paul, ESA's latest "Gaia satellite" has now resolved these problems. Well, this does not seem to be the case - for the ongoing Gaia data collection keeps yielding NEGATIVE stellar parallaxes.

Let's first take a look at a few introductory statements from this tutorial paper released in April 2018 and titled "GAIA Data release 2" :

Introduction
The Gaia Data Release 2 (Gaia DR2; Gaia Collaboration 2018) provides precise positions, proper motions, and parallaxes for an unprecedented number of objects (more than 1.3 billion).

Critical review of the traditional use of parallaxes
"We start this section by briefly describing how parallaxes are measured and how the presence of measurement noise leads to the occurrence of zero and negative observed parallaxes."

Using Gaia astrometric data: how to proceed?
"The fundamental quantity sought when measuring a stellar parallax is the distance to the star in question. However, as discussed in the previous sections the quantity of interest has a non-linear relation to the measurement, r = 1∕ϖTrue, and is constrained to be positive, while the measured parallax can be zero or even negative."

I have made a screenshot of a section (titled "SAMPLE TRUNCATION") of that 'GAIA Data release' paper which starts by stating that negative parallaxes are a natural result of the Gaia measurement process (!) and proceeds to "explain" why negative parallaxes (in spite of being "meaningless" and "unphysical") should, basically, be retained - as opposed to "truncated" - so as to prevent introducing undesirable bias in the analysis of any given sample of the Gaia stellar parallax data:



The paper even contains a diagram which illustrates an "Example of a negative parallax arising from the astrometric data processing" :


CAPTION: "Example of a negative parallax arising from the astrometric data processing. Solid blue lines, true path of the object; red dots, the individual measurements of the source position on the sky; dashed orange lines, the source path according to the least-squares astrometric solution, which here features a negative parallax. Left: path on the sky showing the effect of proper motion (linear trend) and parallax (loops). Right: right ascension and declination of the source as a function of time. In the fitted solution the negative parallax effect is equivalent to a yearly motion of the star in the opposite direction of the true parallactic motion (which gives a phase-shift of π in the sinusoidal curves in the right panels). The error bars indicate a measurement uncertainty of 0.7 mas, the uncertainties on Δα* and Δ δ are assumed to be uncorrelated."

In conclusion, "NEGATIVE" stellar parallax measurements are here to stay - and are certainly not going away.

[Seneca]

Can you explain how you calculated the percentage of 31,25% in your earlier post?



I tried to calculate it based on my understanding of your model and came up with a number that is a little bit smaller, 29,02%.
Here is an explanation for the people who didn't understand the image that I reposted. In the Copernican model, parallax can only be caused by the displacement of the earth because of the motion of earth around the sun in 6 months. In TYCHOS there are 2 motions: 1)the motion of an observer because of the rotation of the earth around its axis, and 2) the PVP motion. Depending on where and when the observations are made, these motions can be in the same direction or in the opposite direction. This creates a trochoidal path as is mentioned. The maximum displacement would be when these 2 displacements are in the same direction as is shown in the image above for the March 2000 > Sept 2000 time interval. The maximum displacement because of the earth's rotation for an observer is equal to the diameter of the earth (in the case that the observer is at the equator)= 12.756 km. The displacement because of the PVP orbit in half a year is 7.017,92 km. Combined this gives a maximum of 19.773,92 km.
The maximum displacement in the other direction would be when both movements are in opposite direction as is shown in the image for the Sept 2000 > March 2001 time interval: the resultant displacement is 12.756 km minus 7.017,92 km which equals 5738.08 km, which is 29.02% of the other maximum. The farther an observer is from the equator, the smaller both distances become because the displacement caused by rotation diminishes toward zero at the poles.

Added: If my calculations are correct, the TYCHOS predicts that no negative parallaxes can be measured from a location with a latitude above 56.6 °. Because for those locations the displacement due to rotation is no longer big enough to compensate for the displacement caused by the PVP motion. This includes parts of Schotland, Danmark, Sweden, Russia and Canada, also Iceland, Norway, Finland, Estland...

[simonshack]

Can you explain how you calculated the percentage of 31,25% in your earlier post?

Dear Seneca, you are quite right, the correct percentage should be more like 29%. I now realize that (at the wee hours of) the other night, I just measured the pixels from an older / earlier graphic of mine which turns out not to be quite accurate. So thanks for the heads up ! :-)

Added: If my calculations are correct, the TYCHOS predicts that no negative parallaxes can be measured from a location with a latitude above 56.6 °. Because for those locations the displacement due to rotation is no longer big enough to compensate for the displacement caused by the PVP motion. This includes parts of Schotland, Danmark, Sweden, Russia and Canada, also Iceland, Norway, Finland, Estland...

Great catch! That would be a third possible (concurring) reason why relatively few (and small) negative parallaxes were observed by our North European astronomers back in the old days. Poor Tycho Brahe, for instance, would not have had the slightest chance to measure one in his lifetime...

[Seneca]

Great catch! That would be a third possible (concurring) reason why relatively few (and small) negative parallaxes were observed by our North European astronomers back in the old days. Poor Tycho Brahe, for instance, would not have had the slightest chance to measure one in his lifetime...

Yes that is possible, at his observatory Uraniborg, located on an island between Danmark and Sweden at 55,90° latitude, the biggest negative parallax would be more than 40 times smaller then in other places.

[simonshack]

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VITTORIO GORETTI - astronomer extraordinaire


Dear all,

The other day I promised to translate the best papers by Vitorio Goretti (1939-2016), the Italian astronomer who for several years strongly questioned ESA's stellar parallax data and its blatantly "cherrypicked" nature and shocking inconsistencies. In the meantime, I've realized that Goretti actually did have some good English translations of his work posted on his website. I think that, for now, the below-linked PDF (which I've duly backed up on my own server) will suffice to give the reader a good idea / overview of Goretti's quite astonishing findings:

Research on Red Stars in the Hipparcos Catalogue - by Vittorio Goretti (January 2013)
original PDF source link: http://www.vittoriogoretti-observatory6 ... ch-ok1.pdf

I highly recommend everyone to read the full paper - but for those with limited time on their hands, I have summarized its contents below in a few sentences.



Lest anyone question Goretti's competence and credibility, please know that he was a distinguished and highly-experienced veteran astronomer (who, in his later years, specialized in the Trigonometric Parallax Method) and that his above research was conducted at the richly-equipped LOIANO observatory run by the prestigious Bologna University. From 1997 to 1999 he discovered over 30 minor planets and produced about 20,000 measures of positions of known minor planets (among which a great number of NEA – Near Earth Asteroids), thereby improving their orbital parameters and becoming the most prolific independent Italian observer during that period. He also discovered over 32 new asteroids, one of which now bears his name.


SUMMARY OF VITTORIO GORETTI'S FINDINGS

Goretti conducted rigorous comparisons between the stellar parallaxes listed in the two ESA catalogues : the larger "TYCHO" catalogue containing over 2 million stars - and the "Hipparcos" catalogue (the most accurate one, according to ESA) containing only about 118,000 stars.

- Firstly, to verify the accuracy of his own observations, he measured the parallaxes of a number of well-known stars - (e.g. the Barnard's star and others) and found that they were reasonably in accordance with the ESA catalogues. He was thus satisfied that there was no fundamental /systematic error in his own observations.

- Secondly, he started comparing a large number of lesser-known, or shall we say, "anonymous" stars (let's henceforth call them the "Nameless" stars, since they are only identified, in astronomy circles, by long numbers and letters, e.g "GSC3064855 or "HIP78741"). Here, he found discrepancies ranging between one and two orders of magnitude. That is to say, Goretti's measurements would put those stars between 10X or 100X closer to our Solar System than what ESA's measurements suggest!

- Thirdly, and more importantly still, he found that the PROPORTION of the stars listed in the Hipparcos catalogue were in stark contrast to what is considered by astronomers as an established fact, namely that the VAST MAJORITY of the stars in our skies are so-called Red Dwarfs, whereas a SMALL MINORITY are (very distant) so-called Red Giants or Supergiants. In ESA's Hipparcos catalogue, this proportion (roughly 50,000-to-1) is practically - and quite inexplicably - inverted!

- Fourthly, Goretti's patient and rigorous scrutiny of ESA's far larger TYCHO catalogue concluded that (quote): "About half the average values of the parallax angles in the Tycho Catalogue turn out to be negative!" (Note that when Goretti says "half are negative", he really means to say "half of the stars that exhibit any parallax at all": in actuality, about 50% of the stars in the catalogues show no [zero] parallax at all). Of course, "negative" parallaxes cannot exist under the heliocentric Copernican model - as I have expounded at length in previous posts. On the other hand, under the TYCHOS model's paradigm, they are to be fully expected. In fact, the distribution of the stellar parallaxes to be found in ESA's catalogues (i.e. 25% positive, 25% negative and 50% zero) is just what one would expect in the TYCHOS model.


Last but not least, in the last years of his life, Goretti apparently also made some other discoveries which might be of paramount interest to the TYCHOS model. Here's a short description of the same that we can read at his (now dormant) website:

"Then, in 2013, he gave up his observation work for family reasons. His last work was in collaboration with Mauro Amoretti and Silvano Casulli, two colleagues of his respectively in Sanremo and Guidonia. They were carrying out research into eclipsing binary stars (Algol-type). The light curves and the measurements of the distances of some eclipsing binary systems (two stars at a great distance according to the Hipparcos Catalogue, but a white dwarf and a planet according to Goretti’s team), show for those systems a different reality.

One example among many open questions: AL Gem (GSC 1356 206) is two stars with a parallax angle of (12 ± ± 24) mas and a distance unknown but certainly high (as Hipparcos says) or is it a white dwarf and a planet with a parallax angle of (380 ± 40) milliarcseconds and a distance of (8.6 ± 0.9) light years (as found by Goretti)?" http://www.vittoriogoretti-observatory6 ... lum-vitae/

In other words, ladies & gents...

In the last years of his life, Goretti was observing binary stars and concluding that one of the two (the companion) was NOT a star, but a "planet"!

Of course, in the TYCHOS model, the binary companion of our closest star (the Sun) is a reddish/orange body known as "Mars" : is it a "planet", as we've always called it... or is it perhaps an old, cooling "Red Dwarf"? To be sure, Mars is the one-and-only reddish/orange body in our entire Solar System.

[simonshack]

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BARNARD'S STAR MOTION CONFIRMS THE TYCHOS MODEL

Barnard's star is famed for being the fastest-moving star in our skies : as seen from the Northern Hemisphere,
it is observed to briskly "ascend up and up in our skies", by as much as 10.36" (arcseconds) every year.

MOTION OF BARNARD'S STAR BETWEEN 1985 AND 2005

source: http://cseligman.com/text/stars/propermotion.htm

An experienced amateur astronomer, Dennis Di Cicco, is known for having patiently and most accurately photographed this rapidly-moving star between 1994 and 1995 - and to have plotted a diagram of his observations.

"Has an amateur astronomer measured a stellar parallax?" : https://www.quora.com/Has-an-amateur-as ... r-parallax

At the above-linked Quora page, we may find Di Cicco's diagram plotting the Barnard's star "upward-rising path" in our skies. As we can see, this path exhibits a sinusoidal wobble (oscillating "from left-to-right") - which in fact represents the star's parallactic oscillation. I have highlighted this "wobble" on Di Cicco's diagram with pink and blue colors - so as to show how these two assymetrical "phases" represent, respectively, 8months and 4months of this parallactic oscillation:



Before proceeding, I will now have to remind the reader about a graphic of mine featured in my TYCHOS book titled "A MAN'S YEARLY PATH". It plots the trajectory that any given point on Earth (or an observational astronomer in his observatory) will trace during the course of a year under the TYCHOS model's paradigm - with Earth rotating once every 24 hours and slowly advancing at 1.6km/h (or only 1mph!). Please understand that the trochoidal path in this diagram is meant to depict a "timelapse trail" (or the successive positions) of, say, an astronomer snapping a picture of a given star every single night at midnight - during the course of a full year:



This neatly goes to explain, for instance, why star VEGA (located high above our heads in the Northern Hemisphere) is observed to move around this trochoidal loop that, in practice, causes every earthly observer to alternately "move forwards or backwards" (by 8months and 4months respectively -in the course of a year) in relation to our surrounding universe. (I have highlighted in pink and blue the prograde & retrograde "phases" (of respectively 8months versus 4months) of this motion :


source of original diagram: http://spiff.rit.edu/classes/phys301/le ... allax.html

Now, the Barnard's star is not located above our heads - but at a mere +04°41 in declination (i.e. roughly "level" with Earth's equator, if we consider an annual average of Earth's 23.5° inclination). Its path will therefore not exhibit a trochoidal loop (such as star VEGA) as viewed from Earth - but a sinusoidal one. In reality, of course, the Barnard's star does not truly / physically zigzag in such manner as it travels across space - this is just the (fully expected) consequence of our annual trochoidal motion. In my next diagram, we can see how Di Cicco's diagram is a perfect match with the expected 8-month / 4-month oscillation predicted by the TYCHOS model :



And here is how (a screenshot of) the wondrous TYCHOSIUM simulator can further illustrate / visualize the Barnard's star's observed motion :



In conclusion, it is the oscillating frame of reference (8months "prograde" versus 4months "retrograde") of any earthly observer that causes the apparent "decelerations" and "accelerations" of our surrounding planets and stars. Kepler had it the other way round: he thought it was the planets and stars that (somehow?) physically "accelerated" and "decelerated". It is up for everyone to judge for themselves which of these two assumptions is the most rational and sensible one.

[Peaker]

Hello All,

Would it be possible to plot a mirror image on our globe of ‘the yearly path of man’ so that trochoidal loop could be neutralised?

Once this negative/neutralising loop was conceived it would be a matter of having a team of observers(volunteers) in their allocated positions to take readings in the appropriate order and on the right day.

The observed retrograde motion would be affected, changed somewhat but in a predictable way.

The path would not need to be complete but just have the bare minimum of data points. True?

I imagine this would act as a proof. Am I right?

[patrix]

I would say so Peaker. If a model can predict observations that another model cannot, while still being accurate in all other respects, then that model is the most correct until something else has been demonstrated.

[Peaker]

Hello Patrix,

Some thoughts on testing The Tychos' explanation of the length of Retrograde Periods.

Would it be possible to build into the Tychosium a camera view which uses 'A Man's Yearly Journey' to recreate the accurate passage in time of the Retrograde Periods?

And while I think of it, is there any planetarium program which models Retrograde Motion using the Copernican System?

Regards,

[patrix]

Peaker,

I have put a lot of time into Tychosium but I have spent most of the time on necessities that Simon uses to adjust it so that it agrees with actual observations.

The next phase is to improve the visuals so that the motions of the Solar system can be viewed from an earthly perspective. There are no technical problems with doing this. A proof of concept already exists (look under camera) but I haven't had time to make it usable yet.

Your idea is great Peaker. It can be done by being able to step exactly one year down to the second and from an earth camera a man's yearly path would then be demonstrated.

I know of no program that models the retrogrades from a verifiable Copernican model. It should of course be possible using a standard 3D framework as in Tychosium, but it isn't which says a lot. The Copernican model is actually debunkable using basic geometry.