Astroblog: Bright, Unaided Eye Nova in Sagittarius

Tuesday, November 08, 2016

Bright, Unaided Eye Nova in Sagittarius


Western horizon as seen from Adelaide an hour and a half after sunset, the location of the nova is indicated with a yellow star. Similar views will be seen elsewhere in Australia at equivalent local times. Click to embiggen.	High power view, simulating a binocular view of the area around the nova. It is close to a star of similar magnitude. A second nova, visible only in telescopes, is down the bottom of the field. Click to embiggen.

While I was out of commission with colds/flu's two nova exploded in Sagittarius, both near the teapot of Sagittarius. One, PNV J18205200-2822100,has been slowly increasing in brightness and has now broken the unaided eye brightness threshold of magnitude 6.0, with the latest report from New Zealand of 5.4 (clouded out here at the moment). PNV J18205200-2822100 (hereafter Nova Sag 2016) is in the "teapot" of Sagittarius between Kaus Borealis (lambda Sagittarii and Kaus Media (delta Sagittarii) and should be fairly easy to pick up.

Unaided eye nova are not common, so it is well worth going out and having a look, although the waxing Moon may interfere a bit.

Printable black and white chart of the location of PNV J18205200-2822100 (Nov Sag 2016), the large circle is the field of view of 10x 50 binoculars. The star next to Nov Sag 2016 is magnitude 6. Also shown is TCP J18102829-2729590 (Nov Sag 2 2016) Currently magnitude 9 and only visible in telescopes. Click to embiggen and print.

Labels: nova, unaided eye