Attention Boattini Observers! Did you see Nova Puppis 2008?

[ian musgrave]

Between June 3 and June 5 comet Boattini glided along the edge of Puppis, then passed into Canis major. Around June 5 or thereabouts, 15 degrees away from Baottini, star USNO-A2.0 0450-03360039 (http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/sim-id?Ident=USNO-A2.0+0450-03360039&NbIdent=1&Radius=2&Radius.unit=arcmin&submit=submit+id) exploded and became a naked eye novae, with an estimated peak magnitude of around 4. But apparently nobody noticed. The actual date (and magnitude) is back extraploated from x-ray observations on October 2007, by ESA's XMM-Newton (http://www.esa.int/esaSC/SEMH9HWIPIF_index_0.html)telescope.

During the time the nova was bursting on the scene, dozens of Australian amateurs must have been focused on the area around Puppis as they watched Boattini. Could I ask anyone who has wide field images of Boattini (that could cover the 15 plus degrees that the Nova was from the comet) from between say June 3 to June 15, especially around June 5, to please check their images for signs of the Nova at 07 05 42.51 -38 14 39.4 (epoch 2000 co-ordinates, see attached map). If you find anything, please let the AAVSO know.

Cheers! Ian

[Ian Robinson]

Not surprising that it was missed , it's very close to a sao197572 and most members here have had bad seeing the last couple of months.

[Outbackmanyep]

Hi there Ian's!
I'll check my files and see, i watched Boattini for a long time and made 42 observations of the comet in total, i will get back to you!

Cheers!

[Rob_K]

Just checked mine - June 2 is closest I get and even then I missed the nova position by several degrees. That was the last time I was able to image W1.

Cheers -

[Rob_K]

Interesting, 2008 A1 (McNaught) passed the nova position in early July - my shot attached. The nova is only about 1/2 a minute or so away from HIP 34192 by my calcs (please tell me if I've stuffed up), not enough to separate it at the scale of this shot. I've marked & enlarged HIP34192 - it would be a very brave person to say that the elongation of the star represents the influence of the adjacent nova.

Cheers -


EDIT: Sorry, typo in pic: "138" is meant to be "-38", LOL - can't be bothered changing it!

[ian musgrave]

Thanks! I made a few observations between June 3 and June 9, only sketching the June 3 and 9 encounters with bright clusters. Ironically, as standard I would sweep through Puppis looking at pretties before doing any Boattini observation, and I didn't notice it at all.

Cheers! Ian

[ian musgrave]

Your locations are spot on, like you said, it would be a brave person to say that there was an sign of a nova there. But this is positive information, as it puts strong limits on the magnitude of the nova.

Cheers! Ian

[CometGuy]

Ian,

Sadly none of my comet searches covered that area in that time.

Terry

[Rob_K]

Ian, I am intrigued by this thread - Nova Pup 2007 was missed and later estimated to have 'gone up' on June 5 2007, using extrapolated data from ESA's XMM-Newton telescope which picked up the x-ray signal on 9 Oct 2007. It was in a very different position though, not far from Naos.

It's an extraordinary coincidence, a year to the day apart, two novae in the same constellation with exactly the same story. I don't have subscriptions for IAUCs or CBETS, and I've been waiting for something to come up on IAU or AAVSO (nothing yet). This is OK, but in your initial post you say "The actual date (and magnitude) is back extrapolated from x-ray observations on October 2007". Is there some confusion here?

Cheers -

[ian musgrave]

There's these things called typographic errors, seen often these days, it was October 2008.

Cheers! ian

[Rob_K]

LOL, thanks for clearing that up Ian - can't complain after my typo in the attachment! But October 2008? Sorry, I'm really interested in this but I don't understand...

Cheers -

[ian musgrave]

Nope, I have TOTALLY screwed that up. The Dates were 5 July 2007 and October 2007. Nothing happened in 2008. I completely and utterly misread the dates. :sadeyes:

Nothing happened at any time when we were observing Boattini.

Now I feel REALLY stupid :sadeyes: (crawls into hole)

[Rob_K]

Ah, thanks Ian! Don't worry about it at all, it's easily done. :thumbsup: For some reason, there have been a rash of on-line articles about this one very recently, a year after the event.:shrug:

Cheers -

[iceman]

I thought you were predicting the future for a while, Ian :)

Move along, nothing to see here :whistle: :lol:

[Outbackmanyep]

Hi Ian!
Im sorry but i don't have ANY photo's that wide angled enough to cover the Puppis region. On June 6th i took 30 images of W1 but at 300mm with the Canon 400D, i also watched A1 McNaught around the same period, Novae searching/stumbling would have been the furthest from my mind!
Cheers!