POSS Transients Re-examined: a re-analysis of the VASCO POSS-I transient results

An independent re-analysis of three claims made by the VASCO project about transients on the red plates of the first Palomar Sky Survey (1949-1957): a shortfall of transients in Earth's shadow, an excess near US nuclear tests, and transients lying in straight lines. With corrected plate dates and allowing for where each plate pointed, none of the three is found to be significant. Includes corrected archive dates for every POSS-I red plate, and mid-exposure times calibrated against asteroid trails for the plates of VASCO's catalogue. Code under the MIT License; write-up, figures, and data tables under CC BY 4.0 (see LICENSE-CONTENT.md). Write-up: https://donalhill.github.io/poss-transients/