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I could see the left hand side of Cepheus through the trees but sadly the tree ruined my view. Need to catch it earlier in the evening one night this week I hope. I did sit out for an hour to use my new binoculars though. Mu Cephei looked super even though it was so low on the horizon at that time. It’s a shame because transparency seemed quite good, Ursa Minor was nice and clear. I headed back in at 2am, which is the latest I’ve done since the end of the summer. Enjoyed the absolute stillness of the evening with nothing more than the screams of a fox.

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9 hours ago, Littleguy80 said:

After a long evening of cloud watching through the window, I gave up and went to bed to read around 12:30am. 10 minutes or so later my eyes were feeling heavy. Decided to have one last look out the window and was thrilled to see stars. Dashed outside with the 10x50s and quickly found the Nova using @Pixies excellent sketches as a guide. Then grabbed the 80mm refractor. I had an APM UFF 30mm arrive yesterday. I managed a brief first light with it last night. Was very pleased to use it to get my first telescopic view of the Nova. It’s only the third Nova I’ve seen. The first was in Scutum in 2017, followed by one in Perseus in 2018. The clear spell lasted all of 10 mins but that’s all I needed.

I really love these type of events and their accompanying threads on SGL. I enjoy the sense of a shared experience that will pass most of the world by. 

Thanks to @JeremyS for the heads up,@Pixies for the sketches and everyone else for sharing the experience!

Thanks @Littleguy80, but I don't want to take credit for @Waddensky's initial sketch which was what really helped in locating the Nova.

I know exactly what you mean about a shared experience. It's nice to often think about a few people all trying to observe the same thing - like comet Neowise.

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I think that’s what’s great about a good forum, can certainly spur you on when suffering with a dip in motivation. Certainly with this interest, it’s great to be able to tap into the wealth of experienced fellows here.

Edited by Stardaze
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My spectrum captured yesterday evening (20-03-2020 about 19 UT), stack 20x120s:

54384949_NCas2021spectrum.thumb.png.88a07f0e8a93b46ec3b9ca202675e84f.png

Equipment: SCT C8 F/10, LOWSPEC with 300 l/mm diffraction grating, slit 40 um, QHY163M, HEQ5 mount.

Determined expansion velocity is 1600 km/s.

348113317_NCas2021Halpha.thumb.png.6e0a71776a0daa1cd4ae8a087e23c811.png

Is my spectrum good enough to send to e.g. A.R.A.S Spectral Data Base?

Edited by Bajastro
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Just had another look at Nova Cas 2021 with 11x70 binoculars though convenient gaps in the cloud cover.

Does not seem any brighter tonight. Perhaps even a bit fainter ?

I might have the chance to get a scope onto it and see how it looks through that.

 

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13 minutes ago, John said:

Just had another look at Nova Cas 2021 with 11x70 binoculars though convenient gaps in the cloud cover.

Does not seem any brighter tonight. Perhaps even a bit fainter ?

I might have the chance to get a scope onto it and see how it looks through that.

 

Just in from using the bins, and yes - I'd say it looks a little fainter. Might be the moonlight though. I'm just setting up the scopes.

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32 minutes ago, John said:

Just had another look at Nova Cas 2021 with 11x70 binoculars though convenient gaps in the cloud cover.

Does not seem any brighter tonight. Perhaps even a bit fainter ?

I might have the chance to get a scope onto it and see how it looks through that.

 

Observing it with a 100mm refractor at 37.5x and making comparisons with the AAVSO chart I'd say that it's still around mag 7.7. Noticably brighter than the 9th mag star nearby and a touch brighter than a mag 8.1 star a little further off.

There might have still been some thin cloud around when I first got the binoculars on it.

So I reckon very similar to last night. Has it peaked I wonder ?

 

Edited by John
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Got it tonight and it seemed comparable in brightness to the 7.3 star in the line of four.

It was to hard for me to identify using 10x50s. At 30x it was relatively straight forward to identify with the detailed chart. Now off to learn a bit more about Nova!

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I had a decent clear spell tonight and took advantage of it to observe the Nova again. First in the frac again and then the 10” dob. In the dob it was great to see M52 clearly in the same FOV. Had a crack at imaging it too using the 80mm frac and my DSLR. 

1043161833_CasNova.thumb.jpg.8d5585eb5ca0a25027ea2a37584e7a13.jpg

Edited by Littleguy80
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9 minutes ago, Muc said:

Got it tonight and it seemed comparable in brightness to the 7.3 star in the line of four.

It was to hard for me to identify using 10x50s. At 30x it was relatively straight forward to identify with the detailed chart. Now off to learn a bit more about Nova!

Nice Sky & Telescope piece on this nova and novae generally:

https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/observing-news/bright-nova-erupts-in-cassiopeia/

 

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4 minutes ago, John said:

Nice shot Neil - pretty much mirrors the view I was getting with my 100 refractor.

M52 is a delicate little cluster isn't it ?

 

Thanks John. It certainly is. Tough to spot in the 80mm frac. The dob brought it out much better with the extra aperture. Nice bonus that the Nova occurred so close to it.

Edited by Littleguy80
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Well I got there in the end, after 2 frustrating nights.

Luckily I can just about manage to lug the Mak 127/EQ6 combo around in one piece, so after last nights dew bathing and clouding out I just dumped in the conservatory. Setting up tonight was easy. Getting the first solve/sync isn't easy at 1500mm f/l and the ASI178 camera. Image size is theorectical 22 x 15 arc mins but in practice it's more like 19 x 13.

I finally got a sync on Caph and jumped to the given RA/DEC. The image was poor, it wouldn't solve and was difficult to visually orientate. I finally got my head round it and the sum total of my efforts for another 90 mins of hard work is one 20 sec sub. Total cloud out thereafter.  I hadn't even get to give it a final focus . I did get to solve the image in ASTAP which reported a mag of 7.55

Single__2021-03-21_20-34-37_Bin2x2_20s.thumb.jpg.161b4494b14e08dedc9bed415551a688.jpg

Edited by Paul M
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Found it in the ST80. It's definitely no brighter than yesterday, to my inexperienced eye. I still think it might be fainter.

After all this, M53 and the Bubble nebula are going to be some objects I can track down in my sleep!

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Well done! Still frustrated myself. Intermittent cloud cover and, sod's law, generally in the direction of Cass whenever I go out to check. I did have the cluster and that line of four stars in view, but although I must have seen the nova in the field of view, I couldn't positively ID it before the cloud rolled in again.  I'll try again if the clouds alllow tomorrow.

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52 minutes ago, SiriusDoggy said:

Does anyone know if it has reached peak brightness and started to fade yet?

Thanks ~

Nobody knows as yet. Novae like this can brighten, fade and then brighten again. We will have to wait and see ......

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Clouds all this evening  round here, but I was alerted to a surprise clear sky at 1am by my helpful cat who was having a noisy stand off at the edge of her territory with the ginger moggy from down the road .

My garden is south of my house, so Cassiopeia has ducked behind the roof by this time, and into the horrible sky glow of Leicester to the north of me , I tried for a while from the front doorstep , but it was hopelessly bright there. I was tempted to jump in the car and drive off to a nice dark spot with the 'scope in contravention of covid lockdown, but resisted and decided instead to take my daily exercise in the form of a short local walk at an unusually early hour ....

Picked up the little st80 and extended tripod, stuck it over my shoulder, and carried it a couple of streets away to a patch of grass near a streetlamp which gets turned off around 1:30 am (as every other lamp in the area does) with some handy trees to provide shadow from the remaining lights. Half an hour later my eyes were adapted enough to just make out the relevant right angled 'V' of stars shown on Waddensky's helpful diagram, and be confident I had  seen the nova, albeit very dimly,  at 2:20 am. Not even a suspicion of M52 though.

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Frankly I was struggling to find it in my binocs but I was imaging the exact coordinates last night, Sunday 21st March 2021,  as there was a brief spell of clear sky.

This is a rough of one of the seven 6 minute subs I got.

FAFCADD5-26A8-44D5-8094-0BAE2026FDD4.png.338f3dce512074cd65b3173b19937171.png

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Struggling to be sure last night again as the cloud didn’t let up enough to be certain. Typically when I went to bed it looked clear but couldn’t burn the candle again last night and it was behind the tree by that time anyway. I need an early view from my back yard.

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At last a clear night. Set up the AZ 100  with the Nexus and my ED 120  and my ED 72. Linked the Nexus with Sky Safari and it all worked a treat. Located M52 in centre of the field and quickly found the Nova at 35 x in the Ed 72. Switched to the ED 120 at 90x. Estimated the the mag at around 7.8. Went back to M52 . At the lower mag it was just a fuzzy patch . At 120 x around 30 stars were visible. The AZ 100 was a joy to use, but unfortunately after a short session viewing some doubles it clouded over very quickly. Can’t wait to get another session with it.

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12 hours ago, Littleguy80 said:

I had a decent clear spell tonight and took advantage of it to observe the Nova again. First in the frac again and then the 10” dob. In the dob it was great to see M52 clearly in the same FOV. Had a crack at imaging it too using the 80mm frac and my DSLR. 

1043161833_CasNova.thumb.jpg.8d5585eb5ca0a25027ea2a37584e7a13.jpg

That's a really good rendition, thank you. There may be an opportunity tonight after 10pm, so I might have to have a late walk and try to find a better vantage point. The rest of the week currently, doesn't look that favourable so the clock is ticking.

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