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Dear Ms. Genebriera & Mr. Riley,
I compared all of Mr. Riley's photo to its counterpart, Ms. Genebriera's photo "Barbarossa_3" (i.e., the photo with the more northerly coordinates, on which I saw the candidate object). Also I compared them to the SERC DSS2 (Red filter) image in the Aladin archive. Both photos showed excellent correspondence to the archive image.
Other than the candidate object on Ms. Genebriera's photo, I saw nothing on either photo that did not match the DSS2 image (except for obvious very slight defects). In particular, I saw nothing retrograde thereof on Mr. Riley's photo.
I spoke lengthily yesterday with *********, to whom I had emailed Ms. Genebriera's photo. His opinion was that the candidate object was *not* a cosmic ray artifact.
So, it might have been an asteroid on Ms. Genebriera's photo. An asteroid would be out of the field of view of Mr. Riley's photo. A trans-Neptunian object, even as close as 30 AU from the sun (which would give 5 arcminutes motion in 3.2 days now, near opposition) would have been inside the field of view (centered on the candidate object).
Thank you both for your assistance. This initial negative result neither proves nor disproves the existence of a distant planet shepherding a point of the 5:2 Jupiter:Saturn resonance. The 1987 SERC image I discovered, is consistent with such a planet.
I'll forward to both of you, any important information I acquire in the future about this. Meanwhile, if either of you take more photos along the ecliptic in this area, I will give my full attention to their analysis.
Sincerely,
Joseph C. Keller, M. D.
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