QUASAR TON 202 IS WITHIN OUR GALAXY.

DISCOVERY OF A BRIGHT QUASAR WITH VERY LARGE PROPER MOTION

Quasar TON 202 : Pseudo-color radio map observed by the VLA at 5 GHz, proper motion of core is perpendicular to the jet axis. The radio lobes are comparable to GRS 1915+105, GRO J1655-40, Cygnus-A, SS433 and Cyg X-3.

We have searched the proper motion catalog of 951 faint blue stars measured by Luyten (1969) for quasars in the recent Hewitt and Burbidge (1993) catalog. We found 40 quasars with the same name, position and magnitude as the star given in Luyten (1969). We have successfully reproduced the results of Varshni (1982) except for PHL 1070, and have obtained 10 additional quasar proper motions to add to the previous list of 30.

One of them, TON 202, is not only the second fastest quasar in our list, but has the largest apparent magnitude (V=15.63). It ranks among the top 1 % in order of apparent luminosity. ( over 7000 quasars are fainter than TON 202 ) It is travelling across the sky at a phenomenal speed of 5 arcseconds per century, about the same motion as NGC 7293.
Narrow band optical image of TON 202 with bandwidth 30 Angstroms centered at 1.38 microns in the infrared. Image is 10 arcseconds high. (Stockton, 1987)

NGC 7293 (Helix) is one of the nearest and brightest of the planetary nebula. Its central star has roughly the same magnitude of proper motion as quasar TON 202. It is no coincidence that one of the fastest moving quasars is also one of the brightest. We come to the inescapable conclusion that quasars are stars within our galaxy, and those with proper motions greater than 40 milliarcseconds per year are within 1,000 light years from the sun.

DATA TABLES

Proper Motion of 40 Quasars:
  1. Sorted by Right Ascension (from Luyten (1969) catalog).
  2. Sorted by Right Ascension (from Burbidge and Hewitt (1993) catalog)
  3. Sorted by decreasing proper motion.
The following histogram is a comparison of the star count versus apparent magnitude for the stars and quasars in Luyten (1969):

Distribution of           Distribution of                              Count
quasars                   faint blue stars
                    8.5 *                                                 3
       Each *       9.0 ****                                              7
       symbol       9.5 **        Each * symbol represents                5
       represents  10.0 ********  two faint blue stars                   16
       one quasar  10.5 ********                                         16
                   11.0 ********                                         16
TOTAL=40 quasars   11.5 ***********************                          45
                   12.0 *****************************                    57
                   12.5 ************************************************ 97
Ratio of quasars   13.0 *****************************                    46
to faint blue      13.5 *****************************                    45
stars in magnitude 14.0 ***********************************              71
range :            14.5 ****************************                     55
   2 %           * 15.0 ***********************                          50
                   15.5 ********************************                 65
   4 %         *** 16.0 **************************************           75
   9 %     ******* 16.5 ***************************************          77
   7 %        **** 17.0 ****************************                     56
   9 %       ***** 17.5 ****************************                     55
  21 %   ********* 18.0 *********************                            41
  27 %  ********** 18.5 ******************                               37
                   19.0 *****                         TOTAL = 951 stars   9
The 40 quasars found in Luyten (1969) account for over 10 % of the stars fainter than magnitude 16.0 in the catalog. It is even more surprising to note that the ratio of the number of quasars to the number of faint blue stars rises to about 25 % for magnitudes fainter than 18.0.

i.e. One in every four very faint blue stars in Luyten (1969) is a quasar.

DISCUSSION

Purely as an academic exercise, we calculate the transverse velocities required for the four quasars PHL 1033, TON 202, LB 8956 and LB 8991 on the cosmological red shift hypothesis. We take the smallest value of proper motion within the uncertainty range and assume the Hubble Constant to be 50 km/s/Mpc and q0=0. Then we find that in terms of the velocity of light c, the transverse velocities would correspond to

Vt = 760, 1000, 5200 and 2300 times the speed of light !

for PHL 1033, TON 202, LB 8956 and LB 8991 respectively. Needless to say these values are without physical significance and clearly indicate that the cosmological red shift hypothesis is completely untenable.

CONCLUSION

Quasars are stars within our galaxy, this confirms the original postulate by Varshni (1979) that the unusual emission lines are due to recombination laser action in rapidly cooled stellar atmospheres. (laser star theory). We are currently searching in several other databases for serendipidous accidental quasar proper motion measurements. Amateur astronomers with CCD cameras can confirm quasar proper motion. Three quasars with significant proper motion fit within a 15 arcminute CCD frame. Quasar proper motion would show up as a systematic change in the distance ratio between any two sides of this triangle. Also, the 15th magnitude quasar TON 202 is so bright that even amateurs with very small telescopes can detect it on a CCD.

REFERENCES

  1. Hewitt,A., Burbidge,G.: 1993, ApJS, 87, 451. (online A Revised and Updated Catalog of Quasi-Stellar Objects (ADC CD ROM version also available from NSSDC)
  2. Luyten,W.J.: 1969, 'A Search for Faint Blue Stars' Paper 50, Univ. of Minnesota Observatory, Minneapolis.
  3. Varshni, Y.P.: 1982, 'Proper Motion and distances of quasars', Speculations in science and technology, 5, 521.
  4. Varshni, Y.P.: 1979, 'The physics of quasars', Physics in Canada, 25, 11.
  5. University of Minnesota POSS Automated Plate Scanning (APS) data
  6. Eggen,O.J., Greenstein,J.L.: 1965, ApJ., 141, 83. Spectra, colors, luminosities, and motions of the white dwarfs (they mention that 'The spectrum of TON 202 may resemble that of an old nova with very weak absorption and emission lines')(also 1965, ApJ., 193, 509.)
  7. Greenstein,J.L., Oke,J.B.: 1970, ApJ., 82, 898. (Spectra of TON 202)
  8. Stockton, et al.(1987) Optical nebulosity near TON 202 (plate 6) this paper also contains PHL 1092, PHL 1027, 3C48, PHL 1226, Q1223+252 (TON616, 4C25.40). They may have performed their own redshift determination from spectra to give TON202 Z=0.3625 (they claim it is because they were not able to center the [OIII] 5007 line within 30 A bandwidth, they give the excuse that other have miscalculated z by averaging very wide emission lines.)
  9. Stockton,A., MacKenty,J.W.: 1983, Nature, 305, 678.
  10. Hutchings,J.B., Crampton,D. et al. : 1984, ApJSup. 55, 319.
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