Episode 30 - Not a Glimmer of an Idea

Released: 27 May 2016
Duration: 67 minutes, 16 seconds

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We interview LSU astronomer Bradley Schaefer about why he s sticking to his guns about the century-long dimming of Tabby's Star (KIC 8462952), why some popular explanations fail, and what can be done to further explore the reason that this star's behavior is so weird. In particular, Brad wants to encourage us to contribute to Tabetha Boyajian's kickstarter to buy telescope time to monitor the star.

Links:

The Fast and Slow Dimming of Tabby's Star
Tabby's Star for the Perplexed, Part 1
The Most Mysterious Star in the Universe
Interview with Tabetha Boyajian
Brad Schaefer: KIC 8462852 Faded at an Average Rate of 0.165+-0.013 Magnitudes Per Century From 1890 To 1989
Brad Schaefer on Centauri Dreams: Further Thoughts on the Dimming of KIC 8462852

Credits:

Host and Producer: Paul Carr
Announcer: Erin Carr
Music: DJ Spooky, George Hrab

The Wow! Signal is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Episode 29 - Catching Tabby's Star in the Act

Released: 3 May 2016
Duration: 35 minutes, 43 seconds

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Stella Kafka, director of the American Association of VariableStar Observers (AAVSO) tells us about

Stella Kafka

how her organization observes variable stars and how they hope to catch Tabby's Star (KIC 8462852) in the act of dimming. Also, a brief update on BradleySchaefer's work

• Intro music: Dark Skies by DJ Spooky
• Intro announcement
• Welcome and quick summary
• Brief update on Bradley Schaefer's updated preprint
• Stella Kafka bio
• Interview with Stella Kafka
• Wrap up on AAVSO
• Nagging, begging, pleading
• Consider participating in the Unseen Podcast
• Thanking Patrons
• Outro music: Ockham's Shaving Kit by George Hrab

Links

AAVSO.org
Donate to the AAVSO

Tabby's Star for the Perplexed, part 1
The Fast and Slow Dimming of Tabby's Star
Interview with Tabetha Boyajian
Script for this episode

Support us on Patreon

Credits:

Host and Producer: Paul Carr
Music: DJ Spooky, Jason Robinson, Erika Lloyd, George Hrab
Announcer: Erin Carr
Hardware: Shure, Pro Art, Focusrite, Apple
Software: Skype, Reaper, Loopback, OS X Yosemite
Postprocessing: Auphonic.com
Hosting: Libsyn.com

Burst 16 - Tabby's Star for the Perplexed, Part 2.

Released: 31 March 2016
Duration: 13 minutes, 21 seconds

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Paul Carr continues with our series explaining just what is so puzzling about Tabby's Star, aka KIC 8462852. In this part we talk about some of the candidate explanations, including alien megastructures,with a Dyson Swarm being one such megastructure. It turns out there is a problem with the naive Dyson Swarm.

We briefly discuss the possible long-term dimming of Tabby's Star put forth by Bradley Schaefer, and its effect on the family of megastructures hypotheses.

Links

Tabby's Star for the Perplexed, Part 1
The Slow and Fast Dimming of Tabby's Star
AstroWright

Credits:

Written, Produced, and Voiced by Paul Carr
Music: Jason Robinson

The spoken portion of the Wow! Signal Podcast is Distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike license. All music is either Creative Commons, or is used with permission of the artists.

The Dream of the Open Channel is Also Covering Tabby's Star

It's not complete yet, but I would appreciate both people who are knowledgable in astronomy and those who aren't to have a look at this latest post (which I may split into two parts). Astronomers should help me fact check, and non astronomers - please tell me how understandable it is. I am trying to make it as jargon free as I can and rely on only the most basic knowledge of astronomy that you also should have had in middle school. What is not clear to you?

When done, it will probably be edited down into a Burst.

Burst 11- DASCH Photometry with Dr. Josh Grindlay

Released: 6 February 2016
Duration: 22 minutes, 18 seconds

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Dr. Jonathan "Josh" Grindlay

An edited interview with Dr. Josh Grindlay concerning the use of measurements of star brightness
from the Digital Access to a Sky Century @Harvard to measure the dimming (or not) of Tabby's Star over a Century. Grindlay critiques Hippke's paper that found dimming in several stars in the DASCH data, and also Schaefer's claim that Tabby's Star (KIC 8462852) is slowly dimming.

Erratum: I said "Schaefer" in the epilogue when I meant "Grindlay"

Links:

Boyajian, et. al. Planet Hunters X. KIC 8462852 - Where's the Flux?
Schaefer: KIC 8462852 Faded at an Average Rate of 0.165+-0.013 Magnitudes Per Century From 1890 To 1989
The Wow! Signal Interview with Brad Schaefer: The Slow and Fast Dimming of Tabby's Star
Hippke and Angerhausen: KIC 8462852 did likely not fade during the last 100 years
Digital Access to a Sky Century at Harvard
Schaefer on Centauri Dreams: A Response to Michael Hippke

Landolt Standard Stars
Landolt, UBVRI Photometric standard stars in the magnitude range 11.0 - 16.0 around the celestial equator (Astronomical Journal, 1992)

Credits:

Host and Producer: Paul Carr
Music: Jason Robinson and Erika Lloyd

Episode 27 - The Slow and Fast Dimming of Tabby's Star

Released: 14 January 2016
Duration: 62 minutes 4 seconds

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Host Paul Carr talks to Dr. Bradley Schaefer about his research showing a dramatic dimming of

Bradley Schaefer

Tabby's Star over a century. This all but rules out any explanation anyone has put forth so far for the short term dimming of the star found in the Kepler data by Boyajian, et. al.

Links

KIC 8462852 Faded at an Average Rate of 0.165+-0.013 Magnitudes Per Century From 1890 To 1989
Where's the Flux? (paper by Boyajian, et. al.)

Centauri Dreams Discussion
KIC 8462852 - The Infrared Flux
IRTF/SPEX Observations of the Unusual Kepler Lightcurve System KIC8462852
Constraints on the Circumstellar Dust Around KIC 8462852

DASCH

I'm Not Saying it Was Aliens (Unseen Podcast panel discussion of Tabby's Star)

The AAVSO

No Signal Found from KIC8462852

Bradley E. Schaefer

Support us on Patreon

Update: Hippke and Angerhausen disagree:  KIC 8462852 did likely not fade during the last 100 years

Further Update: Schaefer responds to Hippke on Centauri Dreams.

Further, further update: Hippke paper is revised in response to comments & We interview DASCH PI Josh Grindlay.

Credits
Host and Producer: Paul Carr
Music: Dj Spooky, Jason Robinson, Mike Griffin, George Hrab