Naked-Eye Nova in Scorpius

[Greg Bryant]

A nova discovered on February 4th by two Japanese amateurs has brightened to magnitude 3.7 (as of last night) and is visible in the morning sky. Nicely timed for a New Moon weekend. See below for more details and a finder chart.

http://www.astmag.com.au/News20070217_NovaSco.htm

[beren]

:thumbsup: Cheers....have to set the alarm for some morning viewing

[matt]

Thanks for the alert, Greg.:thumbsup:

[Astroman]

Cool might be my first DSO target with my new 400D :)

[acropolite]

Thanks Greg, if the clouds cooperate I will have a look tonight. :thumbsup:

[jjjnettie]

Thanks very much for the heads up.
How exciting!

[ian musgrave]

I've made a spotters map for Australia, the map is for around 2:20 am daylight saving time, the map is centered on the eastern horizon. The circle is the approximate field of view of 10x 50 binoculars, and the cross is the approximate location of the nova, at mag 3.7 (and rising??) it should stand out.

Cheers! Ian

[beren]

:thumbsup: Thanks Ian....BTW top blog to

[davidpretorius]

thanks all for the heads up and map!

[jjjnettie]

For the Newbies

From the website "Curious about Astronomy"

http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=234

A nova is a strong, rapid increase in the brightness of a star. The word comes from the latin for "new star," because often a star previously too dim to be seen with the naked eye can become the brightest object in the sky (besides the sun and the moon) when it becomes a nova.

Novae are now known to be caused by a star briefly re-igniting after having lain dormant for many years. Stars shine due to the nuclear fusion reactions in their cores, which process hydrogen into helium, releasing energy in the process. When the hydrogen is used up, sun-like stars slough off their outer envelopes, and become very small, very hot "white dwarfs." These white dwarfs are the inert cores of dead stars which have used up all of their available fuel. Now, stars often come in pairs, or "binaries," where two stars are in orbit around each other. If one of the stars in a binary is a white dwarf, and the other begins evolving into a red giant (a stage near the end of the life of a star, but before the white dwarf stage), the white dwarf can begin gravitationally attracting some of the gas from the atmosphere of the red giant to itself. Most of this gas will be hydrogen, and when the hydrogen reaches the surface of the incredibly hot white dwarf, it rapidly ignites, creating a large nuclear explosion on the surface of the star. This is what we see in our sky as a nova.

[RB]

Great, thanks for the heads-up Greg.

[Diamond Rose]

Very cool!! Gotta see this one! Thanks for the info dude!

~ Bruce

[xelasnave]

Wow thats super.
alex

[mickoking]

Gotta check it out, thanx :thumbsup:

[h0ughy]

wow this is great, hey maybe some images from last year could be directly compared, if someone takes another Scorpio image?

[gaa_ian]

Awesome, Will be looking for it in the morning !

[gaa_ian]

Quite distinctly orange & I would estimate its magnitude to be about 4, when compared to HIP81304, which sits on the other side of the star "Wei" or Epsilon Scorpius.
In fact I will go out on a limb & say that it is 4.2 !

[glenc]

Saw it this morning despite some cloud in that area.

[avandonk]

Managed to get a clear night last night.
Took this image of the nova. It is the bright star almost dead center in the image.
Details Canon5DH, Canon 300mm F2.8L, 10x3min ISO 200, Hutech LPR filter.

North is to the left.
I have added an image of exactly the same region taken last July with an 85mm lens.

Bert

[Astroman]

Nice one Bert, looks like a star LOL

[ian musgrave]

Sky was pretty mucky here in Adelaide, but still got an image of the nova with my little digital camera. Looks to be around magnitude 4.2

[avandonk]

Here is exactly the same region taken with a 85mm lens in July 2006.

Bert

[southern 40]

i was going out sunday morning for a last look at comet Mc Naught , so the heads up from Greg about the nova & finder chart from Ian gave me an extra target , sky was pretty bad in Adelaide, but i got a few shots further south.
First ones a close up of scorpius and second a widefield with Mc Naught and nova , BTW Mc Naughts still naked eye , just.

[jjjnettie]

Supurb shots Bazz. The second one especially.

[Greg Bryant]

Some great shots here!

As anticipated, the nova is fading. Some reports received show it nearing 5th magnitude now.

[southern 40]

thks jjjnettie & Greg ,was lucky to get any shots ,if you look at comet there is a band of cloud under it which extended to the south with distant lightning and it was closing in fast :mad2: but it was great to get out of Adelaide which had a temp of over 40c that day.