Thread: Nova Del 2013
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Old 17-08-2013, 09:53 AM
Rob_K
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Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Bright, Vic, Australia
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Excellent work once again Terry!

I was going to concentrate on getting a spectrum with the Star Analyser last night but incoming weather meant I had to try too early and the area never fully cleared the trees at my place. I didn't have any charts and although I had a pretty good idea where the nova was I could never see enough sky in narrow gaps in the trees to pin it down!

In an attempt to get something (anything!) I resorted to shooting the gaps from various angles using a wide 55mm zoom and as luck would have it I did get the nova in a number of frames. Rough and poorly exposed though. I did a little stack of 6 barely-usable frames but it's got me a little confused. I would have expected to see at least a bright H-alpha line but the spectrum appears featureless (ignore the lines, just noise).

I've attached a composite image, top is a crop from a late frame showing the nova and its spectrum (as well as the spectra of the main Delphinus stars) and at the bottom bar spectra of the nova, and T Pyx for reference.

Any comments or advice as to why I mightn't have picked up the hydrogen emissions? Thanks.

Edit: the bar spectra aren't exactly the same scale - I just roughly matched the colours as they were shot at different scales. OK for the purposes of the exercise though...

Cheers -
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