Burst 30 - The Gaia DR2 Release and Boyajian's Star

Released: 24 April 2018
Duration: 10 minutes, 1 second

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Paul Carr talks about today's much more accurate distance estimate to Boyajian's Star from Gaia Data

Release 2, and what, if anything, this rules out.

Links:

Clemens+ (2018) - Proper Motion of the Faint Star near KIC 8462852 (Boyajian's Star) - Not a Binary System
Boyajian+ (2015) - Where's the Flux?
Interview with Brad Schaefer
Ben Montet Makes a Star Weirder
Castelaz and Barker (2018) - KIC 8462852: Maria Mitchell Observatory Photographic Photometry 1922 to 1991
Gaia DR2

Credits:

Host and Producer: Paul Carr
Music: Jason Robinson

Burst 25 - The Elsie Paper

Released: 3 January 2018
Duration: 15 minutes, 37 seconds

The Elsie dip was chromatic

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Host Paul Carr goes over the new paper by Tabetha Boyajian and 206 coauthors: The First Post-Kepler Brightness Dips of KIC 8462852.

Links:

Deeg, et. al. (2018) - Non-grey dimming events of KIC8462852 from GTC spectrophotometry.

Jason Wright blogs on the Elsie Paper

Burst 13 - Tabby's Star for the Perplexed, part 1
Burst 23 - Tabby Boyajian's on Elsie
Burst 24 - The Summer of Tabby's Star
I'm Still Perplexed

Where's The Flux
The KIC 8462852 subreddit
The KIC 8462852 subreddit wiki

The Dream of the Open Channel
AAVSO
Boyajians_R

Credits:

Host, producer, writer: Paul Carr
Music: Jason Robinson
Figure: Boyajian, et. al. 

Burst 24- The Summer of Tabby's Star

Released: 3 December 2017
Duration: 11 minutes 43 seconds

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Host Paul Carr covers some recent developments with respect to Boyajian's Star, especially the 4 dips of the Summer of 2017.

Boyajian and Team's light curve for KI8462852 since just before the Elsie dip from wherestheflux.com

Links:

wherestheflux.com

Burst 23 - Tabby Boyajian discusses Elsie

Simon, et. al. - Where Is the Flux Going? The Long-Term Photometric Variability of Boyajian's Star
Meng, et. al. - Extinction and the Dimming of KIC 8462852
Steele, et. al. - Optical Polarimetry of KIC 8462852 in May-August 2017
Wyatt, et. al. -Modelling the KIC8462852 light curves: compatibility of the dips and secular dimming with an exocomet interpretation
NEOWISE

The script for the episode

Credits: 

Host and Producer: Paul Carr
Music: Jason Robinson

Burst 23 - Tabby Boyajian talks about the May 2017 dip

Released: 5 June 2017
Duration: 18 minutes 33 seconds

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The dip as seen by the Las Cumbres telescope network

Paul Carr talks with Tabetha Boyajian about the flurry of observations of KIC 8462852 conducted
when the star dipped in brightness last month, and what might happen in the near future.

Topics include the relative size of the dip in different colors, the spectra, emission lines observed before the dip, periodicity, and what might happen soon.

Links: 

/r/KIC8462852
The KIC 8462852 Subreddit FAQ
Tabby's Star for the Perplexed
Where's the Flux?

http://www.brucegary.net/KIC846/#Yearly_Timescale_Fade_Observations

Burst 20
Season 3, Episode 4

Credits:

Host and Producer: Paul Carr
Music: Jason Robinson

The Wow! Signal Podcast is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike license.

Burst 22 - Tabby's Star is Dimming

Released: 19 May 2017
Duration: 12 minutes 57 seconds

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Host Paul Carr provides some brief remarks and one or two speculations about the dimming of Tabby's Star that began today.

Links:

The Astronomer's Telegram
The Reddit Discussion Forum
Jason Wright's Video
Tabby's Star for the Perplexed Part 1

The Wow! Signal podcast is distributed under the Creative Commons/Attribution Share-Alike license.

Burst 20 - The Gaia Data Release 1 and the WTF Star

Recorded: 14 September 2016
Released: 14 September 2016
Duration:22 minutes, 22 seconds

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Astronomer Tabetha "Tabby" Boyajian joined Paul Carr, Roger Wehbe, and Rusty Schweikart in a
Google Hangout to talk about the implications of the Gaia Data Release 1 for a better understanding of KIC 8462852, aka the "WTF star."

Links: 

Gaia Data Release 1
A.G.A. Brown, et. al., Gaia Data Release 1: Summary of the astrometric, photometric, and survey properties

Standard Error for the Gaia DR1 parallax vs. position in the sky

Earlier interview with Tabetha Boyajian
Interview with Ben Montet
Gaia Parallax for KIC 8462852 is 2.554887 mas
Jason Wright: What Could be Going on with Boyajian's Star? Part X: Wrap-up and Gaia's Promise
Wright and Siggurdson: Families of Plausible Solutions to the Puzzle of Boyajian's Star
Almost Certainly Wrong: an Alien Megastructure speculation about KIC 8462852

Credits:

Producer and Host: Paul Carr
Music: Jason Robinson

Episode 33 - Ben Montet Makes a Star Weirder

Released: 8 August 2016
Duration:47 minutes 44 seconds

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Ben Montet

Host Paul Carr talks to astronomer Ben Montet,who has, with his colleague Joshua Simon, just published the result that Tabby's Star (KIC 8462852) dimmed considerably over the four year course of the Kepler Space Telescope prime mission.

Guest Bio:

Ben Montet recently defended his Ph.D. at the California Institute of Technology, where his thesis work focused on understanding the properties of low-mass stars and their companions. During his thesis, he led teams which measured the occurrence rate of Jupiter-sized planets in wide orbits around low-mass stars, developed the first catalog of confirmed transiting planets from the K2 mission, and characterized the first non-inflated brown dwarf with a directly measured mass, radius, and atmospheric properties. In September, he will begin a Carl Sagan Fellowship at the University of Chicago.

Links:

Montet and Simon, KIC 8462852 Faded Throughout the Kepler Mission
Interview with Bradley Schaefer on Dimming of Tabby's Star
Boyajian, et. al., KIC 8462852 - Where's The Flux?
Interview with Tabetha "Tabby" Boyajian.

Aliens, perhaps, but not the Aliens of the Gaps.

Credits:

Host and Producer: Paul Carr
Announcer:Erin Carr
Music: DJ Spooky, Jason Robinson, Erika Lloyd

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

Burst 17 - The Where's The Flux Kickstarter

Released: 18 May 2016
Durations: 3 minutes, 33 seconds

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A short Burst to briefly explain today's development and to ask listeners to seriously consider donating to the new Kickstarter to monitor KIC 8462852 with a network of telescopes using standardized photometry. The hope is that we will reliably detect the star in the act of dimming. Please share this and the link to the kickstarter widely, and drop a little coin on the effort. Together, we can catch Tabby's Star in the act and solve one of the biggest cosmic mysteries before us.

Links:

The Most Mysterious Star in the Universe (kickstarter.com)
Tabby's Star for the Perplexed, Part 1 (Burst 13)
Interview With Tabetha Boyajian (Season 3, Episode 4)
Interview with Stella Kafka of the AAVSO (Season 3, Episode 5)

The script for this Burst

Credits:

Host and Producer: Paul Carr
Music: Jason Robinson
Postprocessing: Auphonic.com
Hosting: Libsyn.com

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

Episode 28 - Tabby's Star for the Perplexed, part 3

Released: 6 April 2016
Duration: 43 minutes, 45 seconds
Thread: Astronomy and Astrophysics

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Tabetha "Tabby" Boyajian

In Tabbys' Star for the Perplexed Part 1, we explained why KIC 8462852 is a puzzling star. In Part 2, we talked
about some of the explanations put forth and their weaknesses. In the third and last (for now) part of the series, we talk to Tabby herself, and she answers several reasonably informed questions about her team's work, past, present and future.

• Introduction
• Interview with Yale's Tabetha "Tabby" Boyajian concerning KIC 8462852
• Frequently Asked Questions on Tabby's Star
• Some of the better speculative solutions
• Wrap up
• Thanking Patreon Subscribers
• Nagging, Begging
• We want to hear from you
• Outro

Links:

Boyajian, et. al., Planet Hunters IX: KIC 8462852 - Where's the Flux?
Tabby's Star for the Perplexed (blog post)
Tabby's Star for the Perplexed, Part 1
Tabby's Star for the Perplexed, Part 2
The Most Mysterious Star in the Universe

KIC 8462852 Facebook Page

Schaefer, KIC 8462852 Faded at an Average Rate of 0.165 +/- 0.014 Magnitudes Per Century from 1890 to 1989.
LCOGT
The Swift Mission
The AAVSO
Planet Hunters

KIC8462852 Subreddit
Centauri Dreams
The Unseen Podcast: I'm not saying it was aliens, but...

 

Credits:

Host and Producer: Paul Carr
VO: Erin Carr
Music: DJ Spooky and Sleep Research Facility

The spoken content of the Wow! Signal is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-alike license.

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.

Burst 13 - Tabby's Star for the Perplexed, Part 1

Released: 10 March 2016
Duration: 18 minutes, 1 second

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In Part 1, Paul Carr provides a non-technical explanation of why the star informally known as Tabby's Star (KIC 8462852) is so perplexing after all. What was observed, and why doesn't it fit a conventional explanation?

The Dips observed by Kepler, numbered

Links

Please see our companion blog post at Dream of the Open Channel.

Boyajian, et. al., Planet Hunters X - Where's the Flux? (aka B2015)

Planet Hunters
I'm not saying it was Aliens…
The Slow and Fast Dimming of Tabby's Star.

Credits

Written, Produced and Read by Paul Carr
Music by Jason Robinson

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.

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