CCD Images of Nancy's Specified Coordinates

20 minute R exposure; January 5, 2002

Here is a CCD image which has 20 minutes of "R" exposure on the position that was supposed to be occupied by Nancy's planet on Jan. 5, 2002 at about 02 hours UT. First below is the 20 minute R image. Next is the same portion of a 45 minute Palomar Sky Survey 103-AE photographic exposure. Finally we have a copy of the CCD image with Nancy's predicted positions for Jan. 3 and Jan 8, 2002 marked by crosses.

It is apparent that all objects shown on the 20 minute image are seen on the Palomar image taken decades before. Photometric analysis of the 20 minute image shows that the faintest objects are fainter than 18th magnitude and thus more that 1000 times fainter than the 10th magnitude Nancy quotes for her planet.
Note added 06JAN02: Nancy claims that her planet is seen on this image. She says it is at the location shown by the red circle. She explains the fact that it was not at her posted coordinates by saying that "the RA and Dec given are to suffice for the whole world" but in fact, she had given more specific coordinates for our observing location and those coordinates are shown by the yellow markings. Our knowledge of those alternate coordinates explains why we did not center the posted coordinates. We, in fact, centered a location that was sure to encompass both the "whole world" coordinates and the customized coordinates. Note that her red circle is even farther away from the custom tailored coordinates. This experience provides an example of why even seriously openminded scientists are reluctant to investigate claims such as Nancy's. Any such serious investigation will simply be used to provide fuel for their claims, even when the investigatory result is negative.

Nancy's custom tailored coordinates

For the southeast, they are adjusted to be:
RA 4.46002 DEC 12.09713 on Nov 27, 2001
RA 4.45973 DEC 12.10359 on DEC 8, 2001

Added 09JAN02: In fact, when we invert the PSS-1E image taken about 50 years ago and process as Nancy has processed the 05JAN02 image we find that there is a very faint (about 20th magnitude) object at the point Nancy has circled. In the 1991 PSS-2 red plate, the same star appears ... so again, there is nothing on the 05JAN02 image that was not there years ago at the same location: (for comparison, Nancy's processed version of the 05JAN02 image is also included)

PSS 1 E: ____ PSS 2 red: _____Nancy's

Added 22FEB02: One of the frustrating parts of dealing with Nancy is that she keeps changing the rules of the game. I thought that my December 5, 2001 and January 5, 2002 images settled the question of her planet's existence for good. There was no object on either image even remotely close in brightness to 11th magnitude. I was totally blind-sided by her happy acceptance of a 20th magnitude object as her planet. She still to this date has avoided repeated direct requests that she explain the error of her prediction. Of course, as I have now showed with my analysis of the OHP January 19 image, she has again claimed as her planet an object that was in the same location years ago.

Validation

Of course, there are those who will say this is all a fake. There is no possible complete answer to such critics, but to validate the existence of telescope/CCD etc. here is an image taken about 1 hour later of the Near Earth Asteroid 2001YB5. The image was a two minute R exposure started at 0301UT 05JAN2002.

The asteroid was moving at about 9 arcseconds per minute of time so it shows as the short streak in the image. The telescope has a slight periodic error making the streak wavy. A skeptic can easily obtain an ephemeris of 2001YB5, determine its position at the stated time, and compare this image with other sky images to validate that this image was taken exactly as stated. It should be noted that this 2 minute CCD R exposure easily shows the asteroid even though it has been streaked out (and hence becomes effectively "diffuse"). Since the asteroid was a 14.5 magnitude target when this image was taken, it is clear that a 2 minute exposure with this telescope/CCD combination could easily show Nancy's 10th magnitude planet.