Strange Quarks

I just made an estimate of V1369 Cen (at about 2am on Dec 29) at magnitude 4.3. It may actually be closer to 4.2 but I could not convince myself of that with respect to nearby magnitude 4.0 and 4.3 comparison stars. Visual and Johnson V observations are shown below (via VStar), with my estimate in the cross-hairs and a polynomial fit (in red) to make the outline of the light curve more obvious.

Regarding the polynomial fit, bear in mind of course George E.P. Box’s maxim that:

Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful.

So far, 628 observations have been submitted to AAVSO. Of these, 214 are visual observations.

What a fascinating, meandering, unpredictable progression. I’ll try to monitor this nova as much as possible over the next week, while still on holidays.

This entry was posted on December 28, 2013 at 4:07 pm and is filed under Astronomy, VStar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.