February 8, 2026
Grandma’s telescope strikes back
Modern and Antique Technologies Reveal a Dynamic Cosmos
Old Space Photos vs New Tech: Commenters crown the analog underdog
TLDR: Centuries-old glass photos helped confirm and time black hole flares, showing the sky is constantly changing. Commenters split between cheering analog archives and accusing hype, sparking a funding fight: digitize the past or chase new toys — a reminder that old data can make new discoveries.
Quanta Magazine dropped a cosmic twist: century-old glass photo plates from Harvard’s archive helped an astronomer track a wild black hole duo called OJ 287 flaring over 100+ years. René Hudec found extra outbursts — even one in 1900 — by literally eyeballing star brightness, and the comments exploded. The top mood? Analog wins. Threads cheered that “grandma’s space photos” are outsmarting modern gizmos, with memes of dusty cabinets dunking on billion-dollar telescopes. Others loved the simple explanation: when the smaller black hole plows through the big one’s swirling material, it sparks fireworks — and those antique plates caught them.
Then the brawls began. One camp demanded funding to digitize every plate, shouting “scan the past to predict the future.” Another camp rolled eyes, saying this is “just old noise” dressed as a breakthrough. Data nerds fired back: timing those flares tightens models; history matters. A spicy thread accused new surveys of “tech worship” while librarians were hailed as unsung heroes. There were jokes about “cosmic VHS vs 4K,” “Ctrl+Z for the universe,” and someone renamed OJ 287 “OJ Grandma.” Amid the chaos, one calm voice echoed astrophysicist Rosaria Bonito: everything in the sky changes — and the internet does too.
Key Points
- •René Hudec identified OJ 287 on over 2,000 archival glass plates, with usable data as early as 1896.
- •Previously unknown flares, including a major one in 1900, were discovered beyond the known 1913 event.
- •Historical flare timings enabled improved modeling of OJ 287, a binary system of unequal-mass supermassive black holes.
- •Flares occur when the smaller black hole passes through the larger’s accretion disk, producing luminosity outbursts.
- •The article emphasizes that astrophysical objects are broadly variable or transient, requiring long-term monitoring.