Interesting...advice today from astronomers at Las Campanas is that they were able to take spectra of it at the 6.5m Baade telescope confirming that is a nova with an absolute magnitude M_V ~ -9.2.
Apparently, luminous novae like this are not common so there is a great deal of interest about it in the professional community at the moment.
see here about the Baade scope.
http://www.lco.cl/telescopes-information/magellan/