Nova in Cas

[Pixies]

Just now, John said:

100mm refractor at 37.5x. The Nova seems to lie somewhere between the stars HD 220057 and HD 220819 in brightness tonight. Those are listed as magnitude 6.9 and 6.6 respectively so I'll go for magnitude 6.75 for the nova

 

Really is starting to pick up again. I should be able to have a quick shot later tonight, if it stays clear.

[John]

32 minutes ago, Pixies said:

Really is starting to pick up again. I should be able to have a quick shot later tonight, if it stays clear.

Fingers crossed for you.

It's just clouded over here

[Pixies]

21 minutes ago, John said:

Fingers crossed for you.

It's just clouded over here

Cloud-free so far, just not quite dark enough yet

[Pixies]

And of course the clouds arrived with the darkness....

[Voyager 3]

John that's a pretty good jump in brightness from 7.1 to 6.75 !

[laudropb]

Nice steady skies here, but of course not totally dark. Nova still seems to be brightening. I estimated it at 6.7. As and added bonus as I was packing up there was a nice display of noctilucent clouds over the Campsie hills to the NW. Not as bright or extensive as the other night, but still nice to see.

[JeremyS]

36 minutes ago, laudropb said:

Nice steady skies here, but of course not totally dark. Nova still seems to be brightening. I estimated it at 6.7. As and added bonus as I was packing up there was a nice display of noctilucent clouds over the Campsie hills to the NW. Not as bright or extensive as the other night, but still nice to see.

Great to hear. I always think it a pity when people stop observing during the lighter nights when there is plenty still to see, as you have demonstrated!

[Stu]

1 hour ago, JeremyS said:

Great to hear. I always think it a pity when people stop observing during the lighter nights when there is plenty still to see, as you have demonstrated!

I agree! 👍

[Pixies]

Managed to locate it in the ST80, even though the skies are still quite bright towards the North. I couldn't even see 4-Cas in the finder. With my 30mm Vixen NPL, the limiting magnitude just now was only 8. However, the fewer visible stars actually made it seem easier to estimate the nova's brightness.

It's brighter than HD 220057 (mag 6.9) but only slightly dimmer than nearby HD 220*19 (mag 6.6). I'll estimate it at mag 6.7

[Captain Scarlet]

… just going out to have a quick look …

Was able to see it easily enough but moving scalloped clouds prevented any comparison with anything nearby.

m

Edited June 7, 2021 by Captain Magenta

[John]

I had a quick look with my 12 inch dobsonian earlier. I'd estimate the same as last night so mag 6.7'ish.

 

[IB20]

Cassiopeia is in the worst possible direction for my observing and is entirely blocked out for most of the evening, so I’m appreciative of other members’ updates on the nova. 👍🏻

[Captain Scarlet]

A relatively early night for me tonight, but I thought I’d have a quick look and get a comparison before zzzzz. But at 2245, it was still too bright to really see! I could just about find the Nova, but nowhere near dark enough for anything more.

[Captain Scarlet]

About the same to me tonight through my bins just now as HD220102, which is 6.6

M

[Littleguy80]

Thought I’d add my entry into the nova magnitude estimating game. Looking at it in the dob, it looks a smidge dimmer than HD220819 which SkySafari lists at 6.6. I’ll put my estimate at 6.7. Now I just have to wait for the official number to see if I have a chance of winning a prize  

Really lovely skies this evening. M52 is a treat in the same FOV. 

Edited June 9, 2021 by Littleguy80

[skybadger]

I've been imaging this nova since the start of may , on as much as a daily basis as I can and then using maxim photometry to determine a photometric time series that both measures and shows the changes. 

Here's an example image: 

Where the nova is the bright star in the middle. 

The image is bias, dark and flat fielded. 

But my time sequence isnt showing the variations you mention. 

Anyone familiar with Maxim and photometry  ? 

The star chart and reference table below are form the AAVSO plot generator, cover 2 degrees and down to Mag 14. 

Nova cas photometry chart.pdf

Nova Cas Photometry table.pdf

 

 

 

[Davey-T]

8 hours ago, skybadger said:

Anyone familiar with Maxim and photometry  ? 

Had ago at this but didn't get to the end only actually managed one image of the Cas nova so far.

Dave

Photometry with MaxIm DL 6 - YouTube

[John]

Nova still looks around mag 6.7 tonight with a 100mm refractor at 37.5x under slightly hazy skies.

 

[Malpi12]

On 11/06/2021 at 10:26, skybadger said:

 Anyone familiar with Maxim and photometry  ? 

Nova Cas Photometry table.pdf 250.94 kB · 12 downloads

 

Sorry I dont know Maxim so cant help

I cant find a cross ref of these AAVSO AUID star names in that pdf, to one of the more usual cats such as HIP, HD and others in Stellarium or CdC.

Anyone found one please?

Very interesting topic, I've been watching with interest, since I missed the recent outburst (behind a hill behind one of my trees ! ) It has now come into better view so I am waiting patiently for another outburst  
 

Edited June 12, 2021 by Malpi12

[skybadger]

https://www.aavso.org/aavso-unique-identifier - I think you need membership 

[Malpi12]

Yes, it looks like members only, I got
" Access denied You are not authorized to access this page. "
I have identified a few, but a bit of a struggle rotating and stretching their chart to superimpose on Stellarium  
 

Edited June 12, 2021 by Malpi12

[Malpi12]

This should perhaps be in the beginners section because I am learning my DSLR , stacking, and variable star observing all at the same time !
I normally observe visual, but my eyesight is no good any more for estimating magnitudes to better than about 1 ! So it is time to learn new tricks.

The first pics are of the Nova Cas from the night of 7/8 July, a stack of 40 2sec exp (with 20 bias, no darks more on that later) on a fixed tripod with a very old 50mm M42 lens.

I then converted it to grey scale, pixel-peeped a few stars that I could identify in Stellarium and on aavso and plotted the value of the brightest pixel (not scientific but I was just trying things) against the listed magnitudes, in GNUplot.
Fitted a quad function curve to them and popped on the pixel value for the nova.
Imagine my surprise when it turned up at about 6.7 !!! Just what you guys were observing  !!!

I thought I would have to do some converting from dslr response to visual, but just before posting this I found the BAA variable data section in which there are a couple of obs. marked with dslr that are also agreeing with visual reports.

On my todo list - sort out how to control the temperature of dark frames to coincide with my lights the ones I collected on the night were all over the place and contributed nothing better than the few bias were able to do
Get an eq mount.
Oh, and cut down a tree ! lol!
  

[John]

23 hours ago, John said:

Nova still looks around mag 6.7 tonight with a 100mm refractor at 37.5x under slightly hazy skies.

 

And again with the 120mm frac at the same magnification tonight.

 

[JeremyS]

Looks like it is gradually fading again in last few days:

[Pixies]

The Nova is Cas is getting jealous! All this attention to some fly-by-night upstart in Hercules who shows off for a day or so then burns out! 

"Over here - look at me!"