Fade of Tabby’s Star (KIC 8462852)

[Andy Wilson]

As notified by Stellar Kafka (Director AAVSO) and Patrick Schmeer, the strange object KIC 8462852, more popularly known as Tabby’s star, has entered another fading event. This object has shown unusual and unpredictable fades picked up in Kepler data by citizen scientists. The cause of the fades is unknown and has been subject to wild speculation in the popular media, but the reality is more likely to be an unusual but interesting phenomenon such as a gas and dust cloud passing between ourselves and the star.

This is a reasonably bright object at V magnitude of around 12 outside of a fade. So this can be a good target for both visual and CCD/DSLR photometry as well as low resolution spectroscopy.

The object is located in Cygnus with coordinates (epoch=J2000):

RA 20 06 15
Dec +44 27 25

The Variable Star Section, BAA Spectroscopy Database and AAVSO will all be interested in observations.

Below is a plot of previous V magnitude observations submitted to the Variable Star Section database.

Cheers,

Andy

Attachments:

1. 

   TabbyStar_20170519.png
   

[Gary Poyner]

Any mention of ‘Dyson Sphere’ fades will surely result in immediate expulsion from the VSS 😉

Gary

[Andy Wilson]

I am completely with you there Gary! 🙂

I think it is an interesting enigma but the evidence does not support any kind of intelligence. It could be an opportunity to help solve the puzzle using science, putting a stop to the unfounded speculation which has dominated some of the press.

Cheers,

Andy

[Dr Andrew Smith]

Gary and Andy you are now expelled for discussing the unmentionable! 

[Gary Poyner]

Crikey 🙁

[Grant Privett]

What have vacuum cleaners got to do with this? 🙂

[Gary Poyner]

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2017-258

Gary

[Jeremy Shears]

Tabby’s star still generates interest as shown by the MNRAS preprint on ArXix today” Evidence for a giant companion orbiting Tabby’s star.

The authors suggest the presence of a companion, either a giant planet or a brown dwarf, around the star. An earlier theory is that a group of exocomets or planetesimal fragments are responsible for the irregular and non-periodic dips in the light curve of Tabby’s star. The presence of a companion would explain why incoming exocometary bodies may result from orbital perturbations by a planet.

PS: still no Dyson Spheres!

[Mike Harlow]

Just a suggestion but…if anyone starts a forum post about an outburst or transient event they should put the date in the title/header. When this latest post just popped up it looked like a new event. But this post started in May 2017!!!
Very disappointing.
Discuss. It will make the BAA look a bit more ‘professional’…
Mike.
[See my post on mirror making supplies as an example…OK, not a transient event!]

• This reply was modified 2 days, 18 hours ago by Mike Harlow.
• This reply was modified 2 days, 18 hours ago by Mike Harlow.

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