Nova in Cas

[Paul M]

Had another very clear night last night. An all nighter nearly

Got another stack of space marbles as @vlaiv has christened my bloaty stars

Definitely detecting it's brightness slipping now. ASTAP photometry still playing up so no numerical value

[John]

Clear night forecast here tonight so I'll take a peek

[bomberbaz]

17 hours ago, Pixies said:

Had a look in the 8" dob and thought it looked no brighter than HD220770 (mag 7.8).

After a session, I had a final look in my bins, and even though I could make out M52, I could hardly see the nova. Definitely dimmer than last weekend.

Not sure it is going to last until Monday then as that is when my next chance is going to be. 

I can still image it but nothing beats photons on the retina.

[John]

I've just had a look at the nova with my 100mm refractor. It has dimmed a little but is still mag 8.5 or so I reckon.

[PeterW]

Light curve on AAVSO looks pretty flat with only a very slight downward slope so probably good for some weeks.

 

Peter

[Mark at Beaufort]

Observed it last night for the first time. I estimate it at mag 8 comparing nearby stars.

[Stu]

It does look fairly flat, haven’t see it for a little while so would be good to see quite soon.

[bomberbaz]

Got the little devil, quite easy in the end. 🤩  I would judge it to be around mag 8.9 as per the second star in the four star line between it and M52

Looking back I probably managed it the previous Tuesday but I wasn't 100% sure. No doubt tonight and got a brief image of it. 

I will pop the image up later as I haven't got time to process just now. 

[AdeKing]

I tried for this on 19th March but wasn't 100% sure I'd seen it using an 80mm scope.

However, tonight I put out the 8" Dob and hunted down M52 then used the chart in @davhei post above to confirm that I'd actually seen it.

Very pleased to say that I definitely saw it tonight and am now pretty confident that I also saw it back in March.

Pleased to have seen this, thanks to @JeremyS for the heads up and to everyone else for the helpful pointers in this thread.

Ade

 

 

 

[Stu]

That’s what I love about this forum. Without it, and the fabulous contributions to it, it’s quite likely most of us would never have known anything about this!

Thanks @JeremyS 👍👍

[Littleguy80]

1 hour ago, Stu said:

That’s what I love about this forum. Without it, and the fabulous contributions to it, it’s quite likely most of us would never have known anything about this!

Thanks @JeremyS 👍👍

Completely agree with this. It propagates from here too. As a result of this post, I’ve shared details with my local astro group and posted on their public Facebook page. The internet can be a very positive thing. 

[Pixies]

8 minutes ago, Littleguy80 said:

Completely agree with this. It propagates from here too. As a result of this post, I’ve shared details with my local astro group and posted on their public Facebook page. The internet can be a very positive thing. 

Me too - Thanks @JeremyS

[lunator]

I finally managed to have a look tonight.

The guides posted on here were excellent.

I used my grab and go ST80 at x16. I estimated the about 8.2.

Cheers

Ian

 

[7170]

As noted in another thread I've quickly measured it as mag 8.5 this evening, has anyone else managed a measurement too?

[JeremyS]

I had it at mag 7.9 last night. This was an unfiltered CCD measurement which is typically a bit brighter that V band.  I’ve seen several vis obs today at 8.1 to 8.5, mostly around 8.2

[bomberbaz]

my image from Saturday night, just a little processing. 

[bomberbaz]

Marked version sorry

[Stu]

I saw this again last night, this time in the Tak using a 24mm Panoptic. For some reason it took me ages to find because I got myself completely confused about the image scale I was seeing. I think I thought I was using some x7 binos rather than a scope at x30 🤪🤪🤪.

Once I sorted that out, it was easy enough. To me it was just a little dimmer than HD220770 and still a fair bit brighter than SAO20610, so I’ll go along with the estimates of around 8.2 ish.

[PeterW]

I had the same experience as @stu using slightly higher power this time, threw my easy star hop off till I found the triangle of stars close by, looks to have faded a bit but still easy to see.

 

Peter

[John]

My view last night was with my Vixen 102 using the Delos 14mm. Similar findings to @Stu and @PeterW

[laudropb]

4 hours ago, Stu said:

I saw this again last night, this time in the Tak using a 24mm Panoptic. For some reason it took me ages to find because I got myself completely confused about the image scale I was seeing. I think I thought I was using some x7 binos rather than a scope at x30 🤪🤪🤪.

Once I sorted that out, it was easy enough. To me it was just a little dimmer than HD220770 and still a fair bit brighter than SAO20610, so I’ll go along with the estimates of around 8.2 ish.

Had exactly the same problem as you last night Stu. Decided to use the 8 inch Dob so that I could get a better view of M52. Found the cluster  no problem. Just could not locate the Nova. The upside down view just completely threw me. Took about15 minutes to find it. I calculated it to be 8.3, same as last view.

[Stu]

37 minutes ago, laudropb said:

Had exactly the same problem as you last night Stu. Decided to use the 8 inch Dob so that I could get a better view of M52. Found the cluster  no problem. Just could not locate the Nova. The upside down view just completely threw me. Took about15 minutes to find it. I calculated it to be 8.3, same as last view.

Glad it wasn’t just me then! 🤪🤪😀

[Spile]

I struggled with this too. I eventually decided to locate the area by jumping four times from Ceph using my 9x50 finder.

The first time I made a basic sketch of the area in the hope of locating the nova later, however I was unable to match the stars and failed.

Then I tried again (using my 42mm 65°) and was 90% certain I had the correct area and noted the "W" asterism which I sketched. It took a long time to match the sketch with other peoples photos but I am pretty certain I have the nova just above the left arm of the "W". 

[Spile]

After looking at  this post I am now less certain as to which object is the Nova on my sketch!

 

Edited April 5, 2021 by Spile

[Stu]

45 minutes ago, Spile said:

After looking at  this post I am now less certain as to which object is the Nova on my sketch!

 

Pretty sure you’ve arrived the right one, the star pattern matches SkySafari quite well. HD220819 is HIP115691