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Planet X Sighting Efforts 2


Don't let poetry, snickering, and ridicule deflect YOU from taking a
look at the ZetaTalk coordinates, at your local observatory, when Orion
comes out from behind the Sun.  
http://www.zetatalk.com/theword/tword03m.htm

This inbound smoldering brown dwarf, located in 1983 by the IRAS team
and reported by a front page article in The Washington Post that year,
was sighted at three observatories in France, Canada, and the US this
past spring.  
http://www.zetatalk.com/teams/tteam342.htm

Below, some quotes from the documentation on these early 2001 sightings
based on the ZetaTalk coordinates.

ON FEB 7, 2001: Neuchatal
  [The] whole team is contacting all and every observatories in France - just
  sent a message. The Neuchatel observatory got it. They are very excited,
  wondering if it is a comet or a brown dwarf, through the latest coordinates
  you gave. I'm going to ask for further details. The daughter of the astronomer
  reports that they suspect a comet or a brown dwarf on the process to become
  a pulsar since it emits "waves".

About Neuchatal: The glasses of the Observatory of Neuchâtel, a single
  instrument built and inaugurated in 1912, are from now on accessible to the
  public. ... [Glasses]  built by the Zeiss company at the beginning of this
  century, it is refracting triple. In addition to one tube of aiming with a
  diameter 30 cm and focal distance 4,5 m (f/15), it are equipped with two
  photographic tubes (astrographes) with a diameter 36 cm and focal distance
  3,6 m (f/10). The astrographes were built for the study of the ultraviolet
  radiation, which was a revolutionist for the time. ... But fortunately, the central
  tube was designed for the visual observation! It is equipped with an objective
  with two lenses, of Fraunhofer type, and it gives excellent images of the moon
  and planets such as Mars, Jupiter or Saturn, which makes the delights of the visitors.

ON APR 1, 2001: Lowel
  I had asked the operator earlier if this scope would be able to see something
  as far away and faint as, say, Pluto. He said he had seen Pluto with this scope
  once before but it was so faint (magnitude 17) he could only see it out of the
  corner of his eye. So I tried focusing on the periphery of the viewable area
  while directing my attention to the middle. Lo and behold, there appeared a
  faint blip not too far off center. I looked long and hard but wasn't sure if I was
  imagining it or not. I asked a friend who had come along to take a look and told
  him what to look for. He said he maybe saw something. I asked the operator if he
  would look in the same fashion. He looked carefully for a couple of minutes and
  confirmed what I saw. I took another look to satisfy myself. Yes, there was
  definitely something there. I had the operator center the telescope on the faint
  object so that we could get the coordinates more precisely and then I checked
  a third time to make sure we were talking about the same thing. We were; the
  elusive blip was centered now.

  The operator described the object as diffuse and of approximate magnitude 11.
  The coordinates (in degree/minute/second format), with a margin of error
  according to the operator of +/- 20 seconds (about .006 degrees) RA and +/- 10
  seconds (about .003 degrees) Dec were: 
      RA 05 09 09
      Dec +16 31 49
  In degree format the coordinates are:
      RA 5.1525
      Dec +16.5303
  If you consider the margin of error offered by the operator, the RA is right on
  with the coords predicted by ZetaTalk and the Dec is off by about .024 degrees,
  best case scenario. If we further take into account the potential Variance from
  the predicted coordinates of .2 RA degrees and .45 Dec degrees, then we are
  easily within the predicted range. I couldn't discern any color. The thing was
  hard enough just to see. I asked the telescope operator if he thought it looked
  reddish and he said he didn't think we'd be able to see any color. I don't know
  if he meant that the lack of color was a limitation of the McAllister scope or of
  the faint, diffuse object itself.

ON APR 8, 2001: Gordon Macmillan
  Near the center I see nothing that I think looks like the [Planet X](just a couple
  stars) but at the very top right corner if I moved my head I could see what
  appeared to be a darkish, diffuse, round spot, fairly large (I also got him to
  hand me a red filter but was then not able to see even the brightest objects
  in my view).