Astroblog: Nova Carina 2018, bright (well, just unaided eye) Southern Nova ASASSN-18FV

Thursday, March 22, 2018

Nova Carina 2018, bright (well, just unaided eye) Southern Nova ASASSN-18FV


Sky looking south as seen from Adelaide at astronomical twilight (90 minutes after sumset). Yje nova is almost directly between the Southern Cross and the false cross. The nova is indicated by the yellow star (click to bingen)	Printable black and white chart suitable for use with binoculars. showing the area around the nova. The large circle is the field of view of 10x50 binoculars, the small that of a 24 mm eyepiece with a 114 mm reflector. click to embiggen and print.

There is a bright nova visible in Carina (ASASSN-18FV), well placed for Southern hemisphere observers, recent reports suggest that the magnitude is between 6 and 7 (just visible to the unaided eye to easily binocular visible). I have not been able to confirm the magnitudes because of cloud.

UPDATE: The nova is roughly between the top star of the false cross and delta crucis near a pair of fairly obvious brightish stars that form a triangle with the very obvious Southern Pleiades (just at the bottom of the chart). These two stars form an obvious triangle with another dimmer star, just below this dimmer star is a triangular asterism, and the nova is next to that. However, it is in a very crowded field close to a magnitude 5 star, and distinguishing them may be difficult.

The nova may fade, or may brighten further, you can find the most recent observations here
https://www.aavso.org/apps/webobs/results/?star=ASASSN-18FV
AAVSO notice
https://www.aavso.org/aavso-alert-notice-626
Astronomers telegrams describing the nova
http://www.astronomerstelegram.org/?read=11456
http://www.astronomerstelegram.org/?read=11460
http://www.astronomerstelegram.org/?read=11457
Tip of te hat to Daniel Fischer for the heads up.

Labels: binoculars, nova