Thread by @astro_katross

I'm 2.5 years into my PhD but today I made one of the most important discoveries of my PhD!

What did I discover? Well... a 🧵1/13

The last few months, I have been processing A LOT of data I've collected using the @mwatelescope
- 16 galaxies
- 25 frequencies
- Observed 7 times during the year

Ultimately, I will produce 2,800 images of my galaxies 2/13

Earlier this week, I finally managed to make some really lovely images like this one and start to look for any variability

LOOK AT IT! So many lovely little blobs! Each one is a galaxy 😍 3/13

But in other images, there are REALLY bright galaxies (often referred to as the A-team sources) because they're so bright they can just dominate the image and make it difficult to produce a nice image of the other nearby galaxies.
This is FornaxA with some cleaning issues 😭 4/13

Unfortunately for the @mwatelescope, even if the galaxy isn't even in the image, it can still ruin the quality of your overall image 😭
So the advice from my supervisor @ColourfulCosmos was to try subtracting a very good model of the source from my data and re-image! 5/13

Thankfully, we're fairly confident on models of these A-team sources! So I just wanted to check which ones were causing me the most grief and make sure they would be subtracted from my data. 6/13

Enter: this bright blob we shall refer to as "The Source" 7/13

The coordinates of The Source was not the same as any of the "A-Team" sources, but @ColourfulCosmos suggested it might be 3C033, a bright galaxy which has been known to mess things up sometimes. Alas, 3C033 is within the green circle.

So The Source =/= 3C033
8/13

So if The Source isn't 3C033, what exactly is it?? At this stage I am completely at a loss... It's so bright and huge, and it crops up in multiple images (at the same coordinates) so it's not some weird feature of this data....
So I try to find it in other surveys... 9/13

I compared it to the same spot in GLEAM (a survey done by @ColourfulCosmos with @mwatelescope so if anything is going to see it, GLEAM will)

BUT THERE'S NOTHING!?!

So what on earth is it!?
Aliens?! A new galaxy!?

I'm so excited but have no idea at this point... 10/13

So what do we know about it:
- It's HUGE
- It's INCREDIBLY bright, dominating the field
- Shows up in multiple images
- It isn't in previous surveys

Then what actually is it? Well...
11/13

I am pleased to announce, that today, 2.5 years into my PhD, I discovered the Sun.
12/13

And that friends, is how I officially joined the ranks of incredible astronomers who have discovered exotic new sources like Jupiter, the Sun and Mars

Thank you to my supporters for helping me with this discovery. It's been an incredibly rewarding day 🥲

fin.

Thanks everyone for your excitement about my discovery. I wish I could share the enthusiasm but if I'm being completely honest, this is what I'm yelling at my data: