A new nova has been discovered, in Hercules. First discovery for Seiji Ueda, congratulations! It got as bright as 6.4 on 12 June but is now fading rapidly, latest obs in the mag 8s. Position is RA 18 57 30.95, Dec +16 53 39.6.
I managed to get a couple of (really rough!) low-resolution optical spectra of this nova in the last two nights and it's fascinating to see the change in the spectrum, from a relatively featureless continuum on the 12th to one showing strong, very broad emissions only about 20 hours later.
I had bad sky issues on the 12th and was very lucky to get what I did. The poor quality of the spectrum on the 13th is fully down to me!
Cheers -