FITS images of Nancy's "Planet X" coordinates, from the Steve Havas astrophotography session, were recently released (http://www.zetatalk.com/teams/tteam342.htm.  Several TT members have attempted to "analyze" these images, and are encountering the usual pitfalls that face would-be astronomical image processors.

Someone named Charles compared a single uncalibrated frame with a Digitized Sky Survey archival image, and proceeded to circle the brightest bit of thermal noise near the Zeta coordinates.  Greg Hennessy has shown that the bright pixels marked by Charles are present in the dark-frame calibration image*, and are clearly CCD thermal noise.          _{[*frames are taken with the shutter closed, to capture thermal noise in the CCD chip]}

A good entry-level introduction to astronomical image processing techniques and jargon can be found at:

"Basics of CCD Imaging"  http://www.starizona.com/ccd/basics.htm

Jan Rypdal of Troubled-Times did a better job, by properly subtracting  the dark frame from each of the 20 raw frames before combining them into a final summary image, however he performed a "sum" rather than "median" combination of the frames.  A "median" combination rejects random noise present in single frames, while adding up the true signal.  The "sum" combination adds up signal but also averages in the noise (illustrated in the images below).

Jan has pointed to the artifact that came from frame #4 and Steve Havas circled the artifacts from frames #5 & #15.  Nancy/Zeta has declared that Steve's "object" is Planet X.

The images below show that the Nancy/Zeta/TT splotches are nothing more than random noise on single frames of the 20 frames that were added together. 

The properly calibrated median combined red filtered image shows no new objects around the Zeta coordinates.

Two other features in the image help distinguish noise from real objects.  

One factor is that atmospheric blurring and other optical effects render all real objects as a symmetrical blur with a smoothly rising & falling brightness profile.  Noise typically has a bright pixel with an irregular, steeply declining brightness profile.  

The other factor is that the telescope's sky tracking was not perfect, and  the pointing drifted during the imaging session.  As a result, all real objects were stretched into ellipses with a ratio of  ~1.25:1, while the random noise does not show this effect:

                               NOISE :       STARS: 

Note: see also an excellent analysis of the noise pixels by IMOpenminded: "Steve Havas's Uncorrected Defects" 

Animation of Individual dark-adjusted Red Frames Showing Random Noise

Proper "Median" Combination of 20 dark-adjusted  Red Frames

Palomar DSS Image with Hubble Guide Star Catalog v2.2 Stars Marked

Jan's Processed Image: "Sum" Combination of  20 Dark-Adjusted Red Frames

Noise in Red Frames 5 & 15 = Steve's Candidate & Zeta Choice