Using Optical Aberrations to Distinguish Real Astronomical Transients

Astrophysics > Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics [Submitted on 6 Jun 2026] Title:Fast Astronomical Transients in Archival Photographic Plates: Using optical aberrations as a tool for discerning real images, from plate artifacts View PDF HTML (experimental)Abstract:The detection of fast astronomical transients in photographic plates from the Palomar sky surveys conducted in the 1950s, was subject to the criticism that such transients could be just the effect of otherwise unaccounted for plate artifacts. In this paper, we show that transient images exhibit the coma aberration pattern expected from off-axis point sources recorded through the telescope optics, a signature that plate artifacts cannot naturally reproduce. Although the data does not by themselves establish the physical origin of the light that generated the images, they lend support to hypotheses that do not rely on instrumental effects to explain transients. Current browse context: astro-ph.IM Change to browse by: References & Citations Loading... Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv (What is alphaXiv?) CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers (What is CatalyzeX?) DagsHub (What is DagsHub?) Gotit.pub (What is GotitPub?) Hugging Face (What is Huggingface?) ScienceCast (What is ScienceCast?) Demos Recommenders and Search Tools Influence Flower (What are Influence Flowers?) CORE Recommender (What is CORE?) IArxiv Recommender (What is IArxiv?) arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs.