I was doing novae more regularly in the past, but recently I do not have time.. It's not much different from variable stars observing (well, strictly speaking, Novae ARE sort of variable stars...)
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/s...ht=nova&page=2
In the nutshell, it involves photographing (couple of frames and stacking in DSS... and even 50mm lens is OK in many cases) and photometry, using Iris (
http://www.astrosurf.com/buil/us/iris/iris.htm)