Waiting for T CrB aka the Blaze star

[Zermelo]

Does anyone know of an app or other means that will provide a real time alert when T CrB does blow?

[JeremyS]

6 hours ago, Zermelo said:

Does anyone know of an app or other means that will provide a real time alert when T CrB does blow?

It will be all over the news.  And no doubt on here (SGL). No way to avoid it! 
The brightening of the eruption is a matter of hours.

[Geoff Lister]

Last night (22nd/23rd) still at about Mag 10.

Geoff

[MalcolmP]

44 minutes ago, Geoff Lister said:

Last night (22nd/23rd) still at about Mag 10.

 I also had a look last night and yes, still no fireworks  !

For bonus points I think you also have (2)Pallas in there, the brighter one of the group of three to the left, nearing its close encounter with T CrB

 

[chrisecurtis]

Two for the price of one. I captured it with my Vespera 2 and posted in the EEVA forum here

Edited June 23 by chrisecurtis
spelling

[Geoff Lister]

4 hours ago, MalcolmP said:

For bonus points I think you also have (2)Pallas in there, the brighter one of the group of three to the left, nearing its close encounter with T CrB

I did wonder if I had captured it, but Stellarium showed it a bit lower (T CrB has the pointer).

I had hoped to run the imaging for a bit longer, but thick clouds filled the sky. It's quite a challenge, with the Sun reluctant to set behind the 'scope, and a full Moon rising near the target.

[Nik271]

Stellarium frequently gets the position of minor planets wrong unless you update their ephemeris regularly. This position above does not look  correct to me for the night of 22/23 June. Here is what I think the correct position is which fits @Geoff Lister's  image very well:

 

I looked last night and Pallas had moved further down (i.e. south)  closer to the pair of 11 magnitude stars

[MalcolmP]

5 hours ago, Nik271 said:

Stellarium frequently gets the position of minor planets wrong unless you update their ephemeris regularly. This position above does not look  correct to me for the night of 22/23 June. Here is what I think the correct position is which fits @Geoff Lister's  image very well:

 

I looked last night and Pallas had moved further down (i.e. south)  closer to the pair of 11 magnitude stars

Thanks for checking out stellarium, yes, I agree
and fits very well with where I marked Geoff's original

Here is a gif of the two ,
 

 

 

[Geoff Lister]

Many thanks gents. I have now updated The comet and asteroid sections of Stellarium's solar system editor.

Geoff

[MalcolmP]

If I have all my bits right in stellarium ! about now is closest. But not dark enough for another hour or more

 

 

[Geoff Lister]

13 hours ago, MalcolmP said:

If I have all my bits right in stellarium ! about now is closest. But not dark enough for another hour or more

I managed to image for about 150 minutes last night (24th/25th). Many frames were discarded, but the stack shows (2) Pallas in your "midnight 24-25" position, and moving down-right, as your graphic predicted.

Geoff

 

[MalcolmP]

59 minutes ago, Geoff Lister said:

I managed to image for about 150 minutes last night (24th/25th).

👍👍  Nice capture

I also had a good view of it last night, (cloud free but very murky haze)  with a couple of SDcards full of subs, , , yet to stack &pp them !! (thinks - I should get me a smart scope !)

 I did do a quick&dirty 30x2s stack with my dslr+lens as soon as dusk allowed, to check on T CrB magnitude,  still no fireworks  

 

Edited June 25 by MalcolmP

[Nik271]

I fell asleep last night while waiting to get dark enough 😴 I will try to observe T CrB tonight while Pallas is nearby.

[Ags]

I have been trying to generate an "annual highlights" list of asteroid events for a calendar year, so I checked to see if Pallas and T CrB show up in the 2024 highlgihtes according to my latest code. The closest approach is sadly now passed:

[Geoff Lister]

15 hours ago, Ags said:

I have been trying to generate an "annual highlights" list of asteroid events for a calendar year, so I checked to see if Pallas and T CrB show up in the 2024 highlgihtes according to my latest code. The closest approach is sadly now passed:

Many thanks Ags. T CrB at "(mag. 2.0)" is something that did not show up on my image recorded early on the 25th. Am I missing something? Perhaps the nova was very short-lived, early in the afternoon here on the 24th.

Geoff

[MalcolmP]

2 hours ago, Geoff Lister said:

Am I missing something? Perhaps the nova was very short-lived, early in the afternoon here on the 24th.

Eeeek! That would have been some sight !!
But no, nothing missed, all flat in the AAVSO graphs and I think what has happened is that variable star cat.'s ( as sorted through by @ags's algorithm ) list it as a mag2max variable.

I missed it last night due to cloud, otherwise I would have been able to do a nice little gif showing it daily from 5days before through close app to 1 day after, boohoo.
 

 

[Mr Spock]

That's the T CrB maximum, not what it is now!

[Ags]

Yes… to avoid confusion l had better add the full magnitude range rather than the maximum, to better set expectations

 

[Ags]

Fixed, I think (I have probably missed something else though - as Scotty says, you can't break the laws of physics, and you can't edit your own work).

[Ags]

I tried photographing T CrB on Wednesday night but the Asiair couldn't plate solve. I think perhaps the night was very warm and the sensor was too noisy. I'll have a go with my visual setup instead, I do have finder charts for T CrB.

[Mircea]

Hello

My first attempt at T CrB happened last Friday. In the Aculon 10x50mm, no trace of the recurrent nova.

In the Tento 20x60mm binocular , T CrB was maybe, maybe visible with averted vision but too dim for comparison

 

I had another look at T CrB again on Saturday. I found it lurking quietly at magnitude 10,4 according to my estimation, using the AAVSO chart X36366VV.

I used my azimuthal 148mm F/5 Newtonian. The sky was hazy. At 30x, the recurrent nova was but hardly visible with direct vision, but not fit for comparison.

I had to pump up the magnification to 83x to be able to do the estimation. The comparison stars used were ''99'' and ''106''.

 

Clear sky, Mircea

[Geoff Lister]

I have been using epsilon CrB (mag 4.1) as a brightness guide. Last night, the wider FOV of my Dwarf 2, and the sky atlas added to its latest app update, helped me to get epsilon and T CrB in the same image.

Geoff

[Nik271]

I had another look at TCrB last evening at 11pm.  Still dim, I had trouble  seeing it at first in the twilight. It was dimmer than star 99 in the charts so somewhere in mid 10 magnitude I estimate. The reddish colour shows well when I stare at it for a few minutes. I used x50 in my 102 ED refractor.  

Edited July 8 by Nik271

[Bugdozer]

Waiting for this got me thinking. What if Betelgeuse has already gone bang but had the bad manners to do it whilst hiding on the other side of the sun? 

[JeremyS]

7 minutes ago, Bugdozer said:

Waiting for this got me thinking. What if Betelgeuse has already gone bang but had the bad manners to do it whilst hiding on the other side of the sun? 

As of June 26 it hadn’t: https://app.aavso.org/webobs/results/?star=000-BBK-383&num_results=200

(people continue to conduct daylight photometry: https://arxiv.org/abs/2112.12673#:~:text=Daylight Photometry of Bright Stars -- Observations of Betelgeuse at Solar Conjunction,-Otmar Nickel%2C Tom&text=Betelgeuse is an important variable,and not observable at night.)