Bright (Mag 6!) Nova in Delphinus

[psyke777]

I can't see mention of this anywhere. Please forgive me if I am doing this wrong.

I saw this alert in my RSS feed: http://www.itelescope.net/sky-alerts/2013/8/15/alert-bright-mag-6-nova-in-delphinus.html

And I found this thread at cloudynights: http://www.cloudynights.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/6025899/page/0/view/collapsed/sb/5/o/all/fpart/1

That thread states it might have a yellow-white colour. I was looking tonight with my ED80 and found a yellow-white star just below and to the right of Altair. Do you suppose I saw it?

Having a look at Stellarium I may have seen "γ Sge - HIP 98337". I will probably have another look tomorrow.

[von Tom]

I took a few images tonight of the nova. On the pics it looked bluish. Many shots posted on the Deep Space Images forum.

Cheers,

Tom

[carl37]

Nice images Tom!

[Suzy]

I just came on here to start a thread about it and see I've been beaten :P:lol:. Good on you Psyke777.

Just observed it at 12.30am thru 10x60 binoculars.
Easy catch and very bright.
Heading off from Sagitta drawing a line straight into Delphinus as per Ian Musgrave's (astroblogger) binocular chart directions (see link- fantastic, easy guide!).
Look for a very bright arc shape asterism, sort of H shaped too, slew left to a blank spot, very bright yellow star which is the nova makes up a triangle asterism. To the left of that is two pairs of bright stars close to each other. The nova sits between these two pairs and the arc asterism.
Very intense and bright yellow it is, wow!


http://astroblogger.blogspot.com.au/2013/08/alert-bright-mag-6-nova-in-delphinus.html


Nice work on those maps, Tom!

[Suzy]

I"m sure Jeanette won't mind if I post this terrific pic she just took tonight of the nova. It's a widefield view so gives a great idea of where it is.

As you can see in the picture here, the asterisms I was talking about in my post above are clearly visible here.

145520

[JB80]

That's a great view of the area and a nice image too.
I'm going to try and hit it with the 50mm lens and see what I turn up.

[Suzy]

Good luck, Jarrod. :)

There's lots of reports on facebook from people observing it last night putting it at mag.5 now. And that sounds spot on from when I observed it- I was looking for a much fainter star which threw me a bit. :lol:.
It looks as bright as some of those stars in that arc asterism I was talking about in my previous post.

Last night, people were seeing it naked eye from a dark site.

[colinmlegg]

Hi,

I think this is a pre-discovery image when the Nova was around Mag 7. It's from a timelapse I shot on Aug 14th, at 13:27 UT (21:27 WST).

Location: Knox Gorge, Karijini Park, WA.
Settings: 14mm, iso 3200, 30 s, heavily cropped.

Thanks to Ian Musgrave for the heads up to check my images.

Colin

ps. the nova is directly below the N.

[Suzy]

It's reported to be mag. 4.9 now.

I'm confused, can someone help me out please?

I just want to make sure I got the right star.
Tho I was quite satisfied I did as I plotted very carefully.:shrug:
I'm confused with the images showing it as blue. I saw it as yellow. :question:

:help: :help: :help:

[JB80]

Well I'm confident I got it in my pics, less confident I saw it with bins but it's possible.
In the pics it's a bluish/purple/pink but that is probably down to the lens.

I just look at it as it completes a row of 3 brighter double stars in a line, you can kind of see what I mean.

[JB80]

Here is just a start, I'm still going through the rest and want to process it better and find a good colour/size to add the tags on the pic but you get the idea.
It's a single 50 second sub, I have included the original and one I stacked with some darks but it came out even more noisy.:shrug:

Also as you may see it's a shame I didn't get the meat of the other event in the pic, I wish I had seen it too as it looks a good 'un.
Also is that the Dumbell in there?

[Suzy]

Hi Jarrod,
Thank you so much for the pics & trying to help me out. That first one in particular is helpful. I know exactly what you mean by the double stars too. And that's exactly where I saw it. But yellow. :shrug:

Shame about missing that meteor.

[orestis]

Hi everyone,

Just read about this exciting event on apod, I can confirm naked eye sightings. It is clearly visible with the named eye from relatively dark sky with gibbous moon.

Awe inspiring to think that I have seen with my own 2 eyes the aftermath of the most violent explosion in the universe.

Awesome.
Cheers
Orestis

[alphamone]

Not entirely sure, but I think I might have got it on my camera. Hard to tell because there is quite a bit of light pollution in the area where the star is, and my camera is just a point and shoot, but there is a bright spot that seems to correspond with the location when compared to the surrounding stars.

I have circled the part of the image where the star should be. Can't go out to take any more images as it has clouded over.

[orestis]

I visually compared it using 20x50 binoculars and AAVSO charts, and would put at slightly brighter than the 4.8 mag comparison star to the east of the star. My visual estimate would be 4.5 - 4.6 .

Also regarding colour I observe it as mostly a white colour.

[JB80]

Tonight I'll try and see it through the scope so maybe I can get some colour out of it and report back to you.

Anyway here is me messing up the Deep Space section :p
A few betterish pics there.
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=110947

[von Tom]

Comparison of last night and tonight:

[Lee]

A link to a good pre/post discovery animation was posted elsewhere....
(Original link) - credit E . Guido and N. Howes
(http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w189/walcom77/gif_1531x1459_2db958_zps3f68f105.gi f)

[Suzy]

Hi Orestis :hi:
I haven't seen you around for some time, great to hear from you!

You're observations were spot on. On the 15th it reached mag. 4.9
And last night (16th) had it at 4.5 (some say 4.4)! :eyepop: We were all excited on facebook as we were seeing it naked eye!

The latest light curve (17th) shows it has dropped down to 5. Bye bye star,:( was a brief visual appearance. :( So glad I nabbed it when I did.
Should still be a naked eye star from a dark site tho. But I couldn't believe I was seeing it despite the moon in the way and thru light pollution.

Regarding the colour- I asked around on facebook and people (like me) were seeing it as yellow. I guess it depends on our eye's perception.

Tom, that's a fantastic comparison image!

[Suzy]

Here's (http://www.aavso.org/lcg/plot?auid=000-BLC-933&starname=NOVA+DEL+2013&lastdays=30&start=2456518.157746227&stop=2456528.157746227&obscode&obscode_symbol=2&obstotals=yes&calendar=calendar&forcetics&grid=on&visual=on&r=on&bband=on&v=on&pointsize=1&width=800&height=450&mag1&mag2&mean&vmean)the latest light curve (as of the 17th). Thanks Ian! :)

Astroblogger, Ian Musgrave has done a great report and pics taken with a point and shoot camera, see here (http://astroblogger.blogspot.com.au/2013/08/nova-delphinus-16-august-2013.html).
Many of you will be familiar with Ian's work as he writes the very popular Southern Sky Watch (http://home.mira.net/~reynella/skywatch/ssky.htm)web page.

[orestis]

Hi Suzy,

Yeah, I've been busy preparing for the HSC and as such have had little time for observations, but I check the site occasionally, especially in case of events such as these.

Ill check the nova tonight and see what brightness I can make of it.

cheers
Orestis:thumbsup:

[JB80]

It was cloudy last night here and not looking better for tonight so here is a crop at 100% showing the Nova probably when it was about 4.9?
Any way it's the bottom left one of the row of vertical double stars.

[anthony.tony]

Hello last night got some shots W/O 90mm Refractor with Field Flattener- Canon 450D Modded -The Moon washed things out shot from in town with Street lights Ablaze.83 seconds exposure -- iso-800.tHINK i HAVE GOT THE rIGHT OBJECT Nova 2013.- Tony

[Suzy]

I look forward to your next observations on it Orestis. :D

Just clarifying that this is a nova event, not a supernova.
Still a violent explosion but not the most violent (as you thought) as in a supernova where the star detonates itself. :)
But still just as exciting to see with our own eyes :eyepop:
But one day if it exceeds the Chandraseikhar limit, kaboooooom! Asta-la-vista babyyy.

Bob King explains this event really well:

"Just as there’s more than one type of tea, there are different kinds of novae. All involve close binary stars with a compact white dwarf stealing gas from its companion. The gas ultimately funnels down to the surface of the dwarf where it’s compacted by gravity and heated to high temperature on the star’s surface until it ignites in an explosive fireball. This is what you see when you look at a nova – a gigantic bomb going off.

Just to be clear, a nova doesn’t involve the destruction of the star, only a “shock to the system”. A supernova is a different beast entirely, resulting in the complete annihilation of a white dwarf or supergiant star. If a white dwarf accumulates too much matter from a companion and crosses the Chandrasekhar Limit, it can sidestep the nova stage and go straight to supernova."

- See more at: http://astrobob.areavoices.com/2013/08/15/nova-delphini-2013-a-white-dwarf-with-a-yearn-to-burn/#sthash.3L1S7QhK.dpuf

[Suzy]

I've just got the extra confirmation I needed regarding myself and some others seeing it as yellow- it is indeed yellow. :D

From Bob King:
Keep an eye on the nova’s color. Right now it’s still in its explosive fireball phase and appears yellow through a telescope. That could change over the coming weeks as it either brightens or fades. Some novae turn a lovely pink."
- See more at: http://astrobob.areavoices.com/#sthash.kfpzGaLl.dpuf


WOW PINK! I sure would love to see that! :eyepop:


And it seems this nova has just gone down as being the amongst the top 35 brightest nova in history! :eyepop:


If anyone wants to do any magnitude estimates on it, in his link given above, Bob has done some easy to use maps with plotted stars.

[skysurfer]

Yellow ? For me it appears bluish (in a 40cm Dob) 18 Aug 20h UTC. but maybe the color has changed since a few days.

EDIT: I had the wrong star, too far east. A little bit west of it is the real nova, indeed orangish, so it is spectral class K.

[Jon]

Both white dwarfs and novae have their own system of spectral designations. We don't know what type of white dwarf this was before it went nova - at least, we have no observational data, the experts may be able to work it out from its current behaviour.

This one is classed as a "FeII" nova because of the presence of ionised iron emission lines now emerging in its spectrum. My guess as to the pink/orange colour would because of the strong Hydrogen alpha emission lines - ionised hydrogen being blasted into space with the initial explosion. Effectively the same stuff that gives the pinkish colour to M42 and the other emission nebulae, but in is case in an incandescent fireball of expanding gas.

Check out the spectrography forum on IIS for more detail - this nova has the spectrography crowd going nuts. Some amateurs are even able to measure the blue shift of those hydrogen emission lines to estimate the speed of the expanding fireball (about 900 km/s, since you asked ;-) )

[anthony.tony]

Last night 100-300 zoom lens set at about 130mm -ISO-800- 99 secs exposure -Tracked on HEQ5 mount -canon 350D-Piggbacked on telescope tube -= Tony

[Suzy]

Fantastic information there, thank you Jonathan!
I will go check out that thread now. :)

[von Tom]

I guess any accurate colour with photography needs a modified DSLR to pick up the true colour then.

[orestis]

Observations from yesterday 18/8/13,

Estimated brightness 4.7, though many people said it faded to mag 5 it still seems slightly brighter than comparison star at mag 4.8

Should take the scope out and check colour.
Thanks for posting images,
Orestis:thumbsup:

[von Tom]

Got a shot at the nova last night and here is a comparison of images from the 15th, 16th and 18th. It is still brighter than it was on the 15th.

Tom

[StephenM]

Hi all,

I had my first chance to capture this nova last night (18th Aug). Here's a couple of widefield images: the first is a single 5 sec exposure with the EF 35mm f/2 lens at f/2.2 and 800 iso, and the second is a cropped region from 15 x 3.2 sec exposures stacked using DSS. Despite the nearby Moon, I was able to capture the Dumbell Nebula (M27) in the second one :)

The second image shows how the arrow of Sagitta points to the nova, which could be useful as a guide if you haven't seen the nova yet.

Cheers,
Stephen

[Rob_K]

Pretty exciting stuff, this is the brightest nova since V1280 Sco (Nova Scorpii 2007). That one got to mag 4.0 or 3.9, a bit brighter than this one. I remember because it was the first nova I photographed, a clumsy attempt with a borrowed FujiFilm Finepix on a tripod! :rolleyes: :lol:

There's a similarity in how the two nova have behaved, both rising to a peak then dropping off a little and plateauing out. Hope this one doesn't fade off too much before we get Moon-free (and cloud-free!) skies again.

Attached are two shots - one of Nova Del 2013 taken a couple of nights ago, pretty close to maximum (has been awful weather here since) and one of Nova Sco 2007 rising above trees, past maximum.

Cheers -

[JB80]

I noticed that too in my pics, what a pretty little object.
Is it as vivid visually?

[Lee]

No - nothing ever is.... :)

[JB80]

Well yeah, I wasn't expecting bright blues or anything just curious if it jumps out at you or if it's a struggle to see.

[tel.lekatsas]

I had a go at Nova Del 2013 last night from the backyard. It was pretty hard to get a clean image with the clouds, the light pollution and the moon less than 40 degrees from the Nova.

This is a two frame mosaic with Nova Delphini in the middle, the bright star top right is HR 7811 (HIP 100754) a yellow giant in Vulpecula. The small blue smudge at bottom left is the Blue Flash nebula NGC 6905.

Skywatcher ED120 Nikon D7000 18 x 10 sec @ ISO 800 each frame
2013-08-18T21:05

Field of view 1° 40′ 5.4″ x 43′ 13.6″

Full resolution at http://wp.me/a3naMt-2q

[StephenM]

I decided to go for a self-portrait tonight (19th August)... here's the result.

Cheers,
Stephen

[Suzy]

Jarrod, it jumped out at me in my 10x60's binos. I was surprised :eyepop:
I wasn't even looking for it and forgot it was even there and then I was scratching my head wondering what it was and the penny dropped in a few mins. No detail- just a fuzzy spot, sizable tho.

Here are my obs notes on NGC 6853 (The Dumbell Nebula) last year looking through a 10" scope:
Transparency & seeing very poor, looking thru cloud gaps and very windy. On this night OIII filter was needed to give any detail. Quite large, brightish. Squarish shape with points either end, top and bottom. Much like a knuckle.



haha, love it! love it! love it! Stephen :lol:
Hey what would be really cool (would it work?) is doing the same selfie but with a laser pointer to it :D.


Great to hear your report Orestis. :thumbsup:
Let us know how you go with a telescope observation. :)

[Jon]

I've been doing some rapid homework :-)

[StephenM]

Thanks Suzy! Yes, I've been thinking of getting a good green laser pointer for that kind of image (I've seen other examples of it being done, and it looks great!). Unfortunately I don't have one yet...

Cheers,
Stephen

[Suzy]

Stephen, I got my laser pointer on ebay, something like $13 incl. postage (it was def. no more than $15) from a a top rated seller in Sydney. I had it delivered & sent very well packaged in under a week. It's a 1mw which is legal and I find it bright enough even in the suburbs. I guess it depends on how critical one is- some think it's a bit dim. It has a 5,000 hr life. It even has the party lights feature, cats love it and are mostly responsible for the wasted batteries in it :lol:.

Psycke777- apologies, I feel like I've taken over this thread. The excitement of the event just took over. :lol:
We haven't heard from you since you started it- so, have you seen the nova yet? How did you go?

[JB80]

Thanks Suzy for sharing your notes on the Dumb bell. :)

[anthony.tony]

http://www.space.com/22420-nova-delphinus-star-explosion-explained.html -Check This Nice image of the Nova out -- Tony.

[matt34]

Hi

Wondering if you guys would be able to help me identify if I caught the Nova or was too early with the shots. The attached is some test shots I was shooting on the 13/8 @ 9:11pm so I think this may have been a little early?? My astronomy is not great and using astrophotography to expand it.

The shot was taken on the 6D ISO up at 6400 with a 14mm lens @ 2.8 so its not the best but I've included a crop of where I believe it should be. I'm not seeing the Nova but that maybe because I was early (struggling some of the UTC conversion). Excuse the noise on the crop I wanted to show an unedited version on here for clarification

Anyway any help would be appreciated. I have other shots from the night but all within a 30 min period.

Thanks

[Lee]

I went looking with binos on the weekend.... from memory I think this is it.... happy to be corrected, as I'm not consulting charts at work....

[Lee]

whoops, a quick online hunt shows I was off - it should be in the circle somewhere....

[matt34]

Thanks Lee I'll attached a bigger crop of that area and left a couple of stars in as reference

[mithrandir]

Used a couple of sledgehammers. astrometry.net to solve it and CdC to plot it.

[russgris]

Found it with my 10x50 binoculars, I would say mag. +5.5. What's the chance it might suddenly flare up?!

For visual brightness estimates, here is a good chart:

http://www.freestarcharts.com/index.php/19-news-and-current-events/188-nova-delphini-2013-nova-del-2013-magnitude-comparison-star-and-finder-chart

[matt34]

Thanks Andrew, so it looks like I was a little early.

[ZeroID]

Oookaaayyy !
First clear night we've had since .... dunno when so I just got out with the binos for a quick look.
Followed down the line from Sagitta and found a small pair of stars, slid up a gnats whisker and found a Nova ! Not quite visible naked eye between a slightly hazy sky and a nearly full moon but I can now tick that one off. It's not in my best point in the sky, low NE over the CBD and it's LP but definitely it. Thanks for the pix you guys, helped me confirm I was on it. If weather holds over the weekend might try throwing the big scope at it. We've had some serious downpours here last night and the outlook is not promising.

[Suzy]

Guys !!! :eyepop:
Remember a few posts ago I said to watch it that it just may turn pink (as a nova sometimes does it seems) ?

Blow me down with a feather- it's changing colour! :eyepop:

John Chumack, a brilliant & well respected American imager, noticed the colour change going towards red as he was he was imaging it yesterday. At first he thought there was something wrong with his colour balance on the image and so the next time he had a look with his own eyes- he couldn't believe it. And then he said it had reddened even more since he last saw it.


If tonight's clear and the moon doesn't interfere too much, I hope to have a look thru the 4" dob- only looked at it thru binos so far. :cool:

It's currently sitting at mag.5.5.


EDIT:
I just came across this.....
Green Nova Delphini 2013 ???
http://spaceweather.com/gallery/indiv_upload.php?upload_id=85820&PHPSESSID=65v7ka0pd8vvureqbqnetdv5s 2

[ZeroID]

Red, green, it's not a Nova, it's one of those changecolour leds you get in the bottom of a plastic cocktail glass. The batteries will wind down soon. :P


I'll go get a feather .... :lol:

[Suzy]

:lol:
Glad you finally got to see the nova Brent.:thumbsup:
The weather in N.Z. sure hasn't been kind to you guys of late.

[von Tom]

OK, I've made a comparison image of the nova as recorded by my EOS 600D (unmodified) on the 15th of August and 23rd August 2013.

Cheers,

Tom

[Lee]

Looks like the Nova Delphini mardi gras is in full swing....

[StephenM]

You've captured the colour change nicely Tom!

Cheers,
Stephen

[orestis]

Just observed it through 5" reflector.

Colour was hard to distinguish, but after staring at it for a while the overall impression for me was a pale aqua green.

What colour are other visual observers seeing it as.

[davenn]

still easily visible tonite (24th Aug)

estimate M 6 - 6.5 yellowish colour

cheers
Dave

[StephenM]

Hi all,

My son and I have been putting together a light curve for Nova Delphinus, as a grade 6 science project. Rather than doing visual estimates, we have been taking an image using my 50D dSLR and 70-200mm telephoto lens using an exposure that is short enough to avoid saturating the star images (typically 1 sec at f/4 and 800 iso). After converting the RAW files to monochrome using Lightroom3, we have then taken the average of the 4 brightest pixels in the image of the nova and a reference star (HIP100754, just below the nova and mag 5.7), and subtracted the background level from a region without stars. We have then expressed the brightness of the nova as a percentage relative to the reference star. This means that we are using a linear scale, rather then the commonly used logarithmic scale for stellar magnitudes.

We missed the brightest phase of the nova on August 16th, but have made an observation each night from the 18th. Here's the results so far. You can see that its brightness has roughly halved during this period. As expected for these events, the initial drop in brightness was quite rapid, but it seems to have levelled out a bit over the last couple of days. We plan to keep the observations going for at least two more weeks, just in case the nova flares up again :).

Cheers,
Stephen

[DannyV]

Hi Folks,
Can anyone please advise me how to get the Nova Delphinus 2013 into "The Sky X" datbase?
My telescope is still off line, but I would like to add the Nova ready for when I go online soon.
Many Thanks

[Suzy]

Orestis, it's a yellow colour.
View thru binoculars (flip for newt. scope):
There is a largish "H" shaped asterism sitting right next to the nova on the right. Below the nova is two fainter stars, making a triangle shape. The nova marks the tip of the triangle & is the brighter of the other stars in triangle.

Jeanette's image is an excellent guide:
146282


Tom Harradine's pic here is another excellent guide.
Line up gamma Sagittae and make a line to Sualocin Delphini. The nova sits pretty much in the middle.
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/attachment_browse.php?a=145862

[gaa_ian]

I will certainly have a look for this tonight.
I have a friend who claims he saw a couple of faint stars flare up and disapear in Crux a few weeks back ! So I would like to show him what a real Nova looks like :-)

[astroron]

I observed Nova Delphini 2013 last night in my 16" scope.
Eyepieces used 17mm,13mm nagler. and 9mm nagler, 6mm radian
The best view was with the 9mm nagler.
I had difficulty at first as the seeing any colour as the seeing was not very good,but determined that it had a Pink Hue. I spent some time on it but was not confident of my obs. I observed it again at 22:45 when the scope was really cool and the seeing had improved and it was definitely a pinkish colour,not bright pink but a soft pink around the edge of the star. It will probably be shown up better in photo's than by eye,but the pink colour was surely there.
Cheers:thumbsup:

[Jon]

I quite agree, Ron. My camera is off for repairs so I'm rediscovering visual. I spent 30 mins on Nova Delphini on Sunday night. Definitely a soft pink hue; not a colour I've seen in a star before.

[rmuhlack]

I tried out my SA100 for the first time last night, and after calibrating on Fomulhaut I attempted to collect spectra of Nova Del 2013. Even accounting for my newbie spectroscopy skills, I think the attached would confirm the overall "pink" hue that you've just been describing.

[astroron]

Well done on your Spectra:)
Thanks for your confirmation :thanx:
Cheers:thumbsup:

[Jon]

Cheers Richard, I got an SA100 too at the beginning of the month. Great time to get into spectroscopy!

Here's a link to Arne Henden's (president of the AAVSO) explanation of why we see yellowish through to pink colours in the nova: http://astrobob.areavoices.com/2013/08/23/nova-in-delphinus-transforms-into-a-celestial-chameleon/

Interestingly, the H-alpha line was initially bright, faded through 18 August, then brightened again. I'm following the complex explanations for this over on a spectroscopy forum on Yahoo. But it would account for the varying colour descriptions of the star, broadly by date, in the observations in the posts above. It probably should have been more white-yellow rather than pink a week or so ago. I have an image from then that I haven't processed yet - I'll have a look.

[LewisM]

I could be seeing things, but...

I was out last night using my MN190 Mak-Newt for the first time, playing with it visually. Happened to look towards Altair, and notice in the vicinity of Nov Delphinus a sudden, yet gradual magnitude decrease, becoming quite bright, before dimming again, slowly.

Seems too rapid to be an outgasing, unless it was a threshold event?

It most assuredly was NOT a point meteor - this took a while to brighten and then recede.

Hoping somene else may have seen it.

[Terry B]

This is not easy to do.
I find it easier just to enter the coordinates in and centre the frame on the coordinates.
I then pick a nearby bright star and add it to the observation list and then use that star name to go to the nova.

[von Tom]

Comparison of the nova last night (10th September) and 16th August when it was brightest.

[Suzy]

Tom, Thank you!
Now I know I wasn't seeing things! :eyepop:
I observed it with my 10" dob on 5th September.

This is what I wrote in my observation notes:
Oh my gosh that nova is wearing a red cap!
Observed first at 120x and noticeable pink hue on half of it. Then upped the power to 240x and strike me down, a thicker and redder cap on half of it.

I'm going to print out your image and stick with my notes in my obs book. :D

[Liz]

Excellent comparison Tom, thank you :thumbsup:

[DigitalNightOwl]

Excellent sight through my my 14" dob.

[Suzy]

:stupid: doh!

I've been doing some digging around regarding the red cap I observed on the nova which looked just like it did in Tom's pic just above. I took it up with Bob King who's been a long time member with AAVSO & writes for Universe Today, so I thought if anyone would know he would.

Nope. No red cap. He did say it has "a distinct reddish colour" which I did observe as a pink hue. He said he was puzzled about the red cap I saw as it's so far away that it'll only appear as a point of light.
So I'll put it down to the seeing conditions which weren't great that night. But it puzzled me why I didn't get aberration on the other yellow stars in the area as I was trying to deduce that. :shrug: Maybe because it's got a pink hue, the seeing affects it more? :shrug:

Oh well... seeing the pink hue was a thrill in itself. :D
And I didn't imagine that. :P:lol:

[astroron]

So I am Vindicated as to what I said to you Suzy:P
Cheers:thumbsup:

[Draco]

Hi Guys and Gals

Any chance of getting the RA and Dec for the nova delphinus? I have a meade lx90 and I think I can enter the values to get it to go there ;)

[Lee]

RA 20h 23m 30.73s
Dec +20 deg 46m 04.1s

enjoy

[lazjen]

From the link in the first post, there's these:

Location R.A. = 20 23 30.68, Decl.= +20 46 03.7 (J2000 coordinates)

[Draco]

thanks chris ;)

[Draco]

thanks lee :D

[Imagerman]

yes thankyou..

[von Tom]

My most recent comparison from 28th September:

Tom

[Lee]

Looks like a marshmallow-cooking ember now.... :)

[Jon]

I think it's faded past Mag 10 tonight. The rate at which it's been fading has been pretty linear over the last 3 weeks, and the infrared magnitude has been fading in step with the V magnitude, which suggests that dust clouds have yet to form. When that happens, it will fade rapidly.

[Lee]

Another comparison image....

[cometcatcher]

Wow look at the colour change. Great image Lee.

[von Tom]

The nova at mag 11.9 (estimated) tonight compared to mag 4.4 on the 16th August.

[Jon]

Nice, Tom.

Photometrically, it's hit a standstill in the last week and is hovering at c. Mag 11.1. It remains a fascinating little beast.

[von Tom]

Thanks Jon. I made an error in the estimate - it should have been about mag 10.9 - plenty of stars in the same field around that brightness for comparison.

Cheers,
Tom