Here is a picture of the data I've collected where the x-axis represents red-shift (roughly the Doppler effect where relative velocities change the perceived wavelength of any wave, in this case electromagnetic radiation) and the y-axis represents apparent magnitude. The shape of the curve represents 'hubble flow' or the expansion of the universe. The major issues are the stars I added. The blue stars are solved issues where the data was simply contaminated by an outside source (in most cases a close star which made the apparent magnitude of the galaxy much brighter). The issue I am researching now is how to deal with the orange stars. My current hypothesis after some careful reading of papers and texts on cosmology is th
at the anomalies I see are manifestations of the "Great Attractor"; however, I will certainly need to read more on the topic before I draw any conclusions. Of course, I will also need to examine some attributes of the problem galaxies so that I can be certain that they are in the target region of this phenomena.In the next graph, you simply see a histogram of apparent magnitudes of galaxies at a certain red-shift. I am also currently examing this data so that I may try to develop a standard model for average absolute magnitude based on the collected data. Eventually, after I have completed my statistical analysis, I will be able to use my data as a benchmark to estimate the distances to various intergalactic regions. This will hopefully allow me to determine both the current size of the visible universe and the age of the universe independently of a given hubble constant.
Thanks for reading all of this. I will try to be more consistent in my updates but life is busy!
