Hi Orestis
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)! We were all excited on facebook as we were seeing it naked eye!
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.
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.
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
I look forward to your next observations on it Orestis.
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
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."
I've just got the extra confirmation I needed regarding myself and some others seeing it as yellow- it is indeed yellow.
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!
And it seems this nova has just gone down as being the amongst the top 35 brightest nova in history!
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.
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.
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 ;-) )
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.
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!
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.
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
I noticed that too in my pics, what a pretty little object.
Is it as vivid visually?
Jarrod, it jumped out at me in my 10x60's binos. I was surprised
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
Hey what would be really cool (would it work?) is doing the same selfie but with a laser pointer to it .
Great to hear your report Orestis.
Let us know how you go with a telescope observation.
Last edited by Suzy; 19-08-2013 at 10:46 PM.
Reason: Edit: added in Dumbell obs thru a scope for Jarrod.
We were all excited on facebook as we were seeing it naked eye!
