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Set the alarm for 3am and got a nice view from the southern Sydney suburbs this morning. Hello thermonuclear explosion! It was pretty easy with the naked eye, and comparison with stars in Musca and near Acrux put it at very approximately 3.9 or 4.0 to my fairly untrained eye. It appeared to me slightly brighter than the stars just south of Acrux (4.0 & 4.1), but definitely fainter than Gamma and Delta Muscae (3.6 & 3.8). It was tricky to estimate because the stars I used were higher than the nova, so my estimate may be quite well off. I didn't note any obvious colour. Also interesting for me is that it's not so far from the position of the first nova I ever saw - it's about 2 deg from the location of a much fainter Centaurus nova in 2012.
Nice binocular views of Jupiter just 1/4 deg from Delta Gem, and my first view of Mars for a while.
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