New Naked-eye Nova in Scorpius

[kochu]

Hi All,

New naked eye-Nova in Scorpius

http://skytonight.com/observing/home/Nova-Sco-2007.html

Kochu/17-2-07
=========

[Airconvent]

Thanks Kochu..

[starfinder]

This news is a few days old already, and I read it just today: there is a new bright nova in Scorpius!

(declination –32° 21', right ascension 16h 57.7m)

See the Sky & Telescope article about Nova Scorpii 2007 (a.k.a. V1280 Scorpii) here:
http://skytonight.com/observing/home/Nova-Sco-2007.html

The nova peaked on Friday Feb 16th at magnitude 3.9, and is now around magnitude 4.8, which is still quite bright.

Latest observations of its magnitude may be found here:
http://www.aavso.org/cgi-bin/newql.pl?n ... utput=html

And a magnitude comparison chart is to be found here:
http://www.aavso.org/cgi-bin/shrinkwrap ... SCO-AA.GIF

Scorpius is high up in the ESE this week just before dawn. I just might wake up one of these days to observe and photograph the nova.

Anyone who takes a photo of it, please post it here!

[kamiru]

BTW, what is a definition of a nova?

I tried to find the star this morning and find nothin unusual at scorpius except for a bright star at the pt where the nova is.

[Airconvent]

BTW, what is a definition of a nova?

I tried to find the star this morning and find nothin unusual at scorpius except for a bright star at the pt where the nova is.

Nova is when a variable star literally explodes and throws out large amounts of its material at high speeds. such material consisting of elements like iron, carbon, etc become the raw material for planets.
Such events occur periodically this unlike our own sun which is fairly stable.

This is different from a super nova event when the star literally blows itself apart completely, leaving nothing behind except pulsating neutron star known as a pulsar.

[weixing]

Hi,
To be exact, a nova is a violent nuclear explosion caused by the accumulation of hydrogen onto the surface of a white dwarf star from the companion star in a binary system. This'll happen if one of the stars become a white dwarf in a stars system and if these stars are close enough to each other. The material from the companion star can be pulled off its surface and onto the white dwarf. Sometimes, the temperature of this new material on the surface of the white dwarf will become hot enough to start a nuclear fusion and the surface of the white dwarf will start to fuse the hydrogen into helium over its surface. The enormous amount of energy release blows the remaining gases away from the white dwarf's surface and produces an extremely bright outburst of light.

If a nova fails to clear enough material off the surface of the white dwarf or the accumulation of hydrogen is too fast and reach a certain limit, the entire star can be destroyed by a very large nova explosion. This is called a Type Ia Supernova.

This is different from a super nova event when the star literally blows itself apart completely, leaving nothing behind except pulsating neutron star known as a pulsar.

If the star is too massive, a black hole can be form instead. This is called a Type II Supernova.

Have a nice day.

[starfinder]

i say Airconvent, Weixing, that's very exciting, to be able to see all these nuclear events happening and developing "now".

Also, the S&T article has just been updated with an explanation of what a nova is:
http://skytonight.com/observing/home/Nova-Sco-2007.html

It states that as of today (21st Feb), the nova has changed colour-wise from white to orange-red, and is now at magnitude 4.9.

If only I had managed to observe it earlier. The change in colour would have been fascinating to watch.


It appears from the following Wikipedia article that the occurence of bright nova (i.e. apparent brightness from Earth) are not very common:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova

Just 6 since 1990. I recall I did observe RS Oph last year, and there was a thread about it on singastro.


Bright novae since 1890

Year Nova Maximum brightness

1891 T Aurigae 3.8 mag
1898 V1059 Sagittarii 4.5 mag
1899 V606 Aquilae 5.5 mag
1901 GK Persei 0.2 mag
1903 Nova Geminorum 1903 6 mag
1905 Nova Aquilae 1905 7.3 mag
1910 Nova Lacertae 1910 4.6 mag
1912 Nova Geminorum 1912 3.5 mag
1918 V603 Aquilae −1.8 mag
1919 Nova Lyrae 1919 7.4 mag
1919 Nova Ophiuchi 1919 7.4 mag
1920 Nova Cygni 1920 2.0 mag
1925 RR Pictoris 1.2 mag
1934 DQ Herculis 1.4 mag
1936 CP Lacertae 2.1 mag
1939 BT Monocerotis 4.5 mag
1942 CP Puppis 0.3 mag
1943 Nova Aquilae 1943 6.1 mag
1950 DK Lacertae 5.0 mag
1960 V446 Herculis 2.8 mag
1963 V533 Herculis 3 mag
1970 FH Serpentis 4 mag
1975 V1500 Cygni 2.0 mag
1975 V373 Scuti 6 mag
1976 NQ Vulpeculae 6 mag
1978 V1668 Cygni 6 mag
1984 QU Vulpeculae 5.2 mag
1986 V842 Centauri 4.6 mag
1991 V838 Herculis 5.0 mag
1992 V1974 Cygni 4.2 mag
1999 V1494 Aquilae 5.03 mag
1999 V382 Velorum 2.6 mag
2006 RS Ophiuchi 4.5 mag
2007 V1280 Scorpii ~3.7 mag

[weixing]

Hi,
Just wonder why when there is something interesting up there, the weather turns bad??

Anyway, hope that this friday/weekend nights will have good weather, so that we can have a good look at this Nova if it still visible.

Have a nice day.

[aquillae]

Hi,
Just wonder why when there is something interesting up there, the weather turns bad??

.

Someone's getting a new astro-toy at the same time

[starfinder]

I managed to observe and photograph Nova Scorpii 2007 early this morning (6am Thurs 22 Feb 2007).

It appears to be at around mag 4.5 to 5.0.

The nova's colour is slightly orangish, and definitely not white like some of the surrounding stars. However, it is not exactly red, just a distinct tint towards orange.

Attached is a wide-field photo (10 seconds, ISO 400 f4.5, using a zoom lens at 70mm, cropped and annotated). Jupiter is at the top left, Antares at the top right, and Nova Scorpii and the surrounding stars at the bottom.

I hope to continue to observe and photograph it in the next few days to see if I can detect it dimming or changing colour.