From Alan Newman:

Re: Dark energy, or just dust? Findings raise questions (March 1, 2008): I have long wondered whether cosmic dust or similar could be the culprit in making supernovae appear further than they were, giving the impression of acceleration, so this could confirm my suspicion. However, as I am not a professional astronomer, contradictory observations may have since been conducted without my being aware of it.

Nevertheless, about a year ago I plotted a graph using data on galaxy clusters released by the Chandra team. Much to my amazement, this clearly indicated deceleration, (contradicting a curve I had drawn using supernovae data)! I posed the question how this could be several times to them, but I have been ignored. Obviously, they were obliged to use a different method to establish distance, which suggests they arrived at a more relevant set of data, but misinterpreted the results.

In the hope someone would take notice, I had a short article published on the on-line General Science Journal: here.

I accept this is not peer-reviewed, but its founder Walter Babin thought it worthy of publication.

I have since tried to get a response from several astronomers, but none responded in a positive way to offer an explanation, so could you please offer comment or obtain an opinion from a suitable specialist in this field.

Alan Newman
Gloucestershire
England