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    Why We Publish Non-Detections

    June 18, 2026 admin

    A meaningful share of what the network images each month turns out to be nothing — a suspected variable star that holds steady, a transient brightness report that resolves to a satellite flare, a candidate NEO that turns out to already be cataloged. We publish all of it anyway.

    A non-detection is still useful information: it tells the next observer not to spend a clear night re-checking the same target. Treating the archive as a highlight reel instead of an honest record would make it less useful to everyone using it, including us.

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