ARG0003sus

• by arianna99

  Another anamolous point in the black streak emanating from the star, what could it be?

  Posted January 21, 2015 2:50 AM

• by arianna99

  What is the curious white object in the black streak emanating from the left of the star?

  Posted January 21, 2015 2:50 AM

• by JeanTate

  Hi arianna99, and welcome to Radio Galaxy Zoo! 😃

  The background ('wallpaper') part of this image comes from the SWIRE (Spitzer Wide-area InfraRed Extragalactic) survey; these are quite new to RGZ (and to me). However, the types of features you describe - 'black streak', 'white spot' - are very likely just artifacts.

  The black streaks seem to be associated with the bright six-pointed 'star', and could be processing artifacts, where the software tried to compensate for the diffraction spikes from the bright source (they may also be hardware artifacts, which the detector/chip produces during 'readout').

  The white spot seems to be a single pixel; if so, then it's very likely just a 'bad pixel' in the detector, one which the processing pipeline did not fully remove.

  Hope this helps (and I hope my explanations are correct).

  Posted January 22, 2015 4:52 PM