Curious Quasars - Robin Waddling
The March 2006 edition of EROS reported from the Hubble Heritage website that the redshift controvesy concerning objects such as ngc 4319 and its associated MK205 'has almost faded from view'. Robin has been exploring the literature that is published on the internet and there is still a debate in progress concerning the nature of discordant redshifts. Robin provided a brief overview of active galactic nuclei, blazars, quasars and Seyferts and their relationship within the unified model. Paul Marmet's The Cosmological Constant and the Redshift of Quasars is able to explain away the unusually high redshifts of quasars in terms of inelastic collisions between photons and atoms and molecules using the Lamor Equation. This places quasars some 1600 times closer than indicated by a simple cosmological interpretatation of redshift. This would make the existence of light bridges a realistic proposition.
It can be argued that quasers which appear to be associated with galaxies may have in fact been ejected from those galaxies, e.g. M82 and M106. This is reasonable, once the discordant redshift is removed. Quasars do not exhibit the anticipated lunminosity/redshift relationship - distant ones do not appear to be dimmer. Robin completed his talk with a discussion of Sc1 spiral galaxies. It is reported that their distances, as derived from redshift measurement, when matched against angular diameters, would appear to make these galaxies enormous in comparison with other spiral galaxies. However Fisher-Tully distance determination, makes them some 100 million light years closer than the redshift measurement.
So whilst the use of redshift measurements underpins present astronomy and cosmology, there does remain some anomalous results. If these continue to defy explanation, and more are discovered, then it may be necessary to examine our interpretation of the redshift phenomemon.
FTN April 2006 - Brian Thomas
Brian reviewed the planned observation session for 28/4/06. The objects are the same as those for March 2006. Details are in our Members Area.
Solar Halo - Brian Thomas
Brian explained how a 22 degree solar halo can be formed by the dispersion of light by hexagonal ice crystals that are some 20 micrometers in size in cirrus clouds.Further details can be found on the University of Illinois website.
Venus Update - Lesley Milner
The southern pole of Venus has recently been photographed for the first time. Images may be viewed on the ESA Venus Express website.These initial, low resolution images, from 200,000km show detail and structure in the cloud layers.
The Hubble Website - Brian Thomas
The Hubble Website site continues to improve and is well worth a visit.There you will find an excellent video stream on Tonight's Sky along with many other very good resources.
Time - The Hidden Dimensions of the Missing Physics - Frank Costello
One of Frank's relatives has published a book on Tempo Field Theory. The Tempo Field Theory website has details. Bill Barlow has been given a copy to review for our society.
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