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 .
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
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.
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.
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 :-)
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
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.
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.
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.
Well done on your Spectra
Thanks for your confirmation
Cheers
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.
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.
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
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.
Tom, Thank you!
Now I know I wasn't seeing things!
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.
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. Maybe because it's got a pink hue, the seeing affects it more?
Oh well... seeing the pink hue was a thrill in itself.
And I didn't imagine that.
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. Maybe because it's got a pink hue, the seeing affects it more?
Oh well... seeing the pink hue was a thrill in itself.
And I didn't imagine that.
So I am Vindicated as to what I said to you Suzy
Cheers
.
doh!
Maybe because it's got a pink hue, the seeing affects it more? 
