I spent last night at a really well-attended ASSA member’s night at Stockport Observatory last night, an awesome start for 2014.
A number of members enjoyed views of the nova in Centaurus (V1369 Cen). The cross hairs in the light curve below are over my visual estimate just after 1am; as in previous posts, the observations in purple show others I’ve made (only 5 up to this point).
The details of the observation are as follows:
When I first submitted the observation to AAVSO at around 3am, it was around 0.3 magnitudes brighter than the previous one. Others have since submitted more observations around the same time with similar magnitude values.
The nova was clearly visible to the unaided eye from Stockport at that time, as were the 4.7 and 4.3 comparison stars I used for the estimate (shown, by the conventional labels, as 43 and 47 above).
An observation a couple hours earlier at around 10:30pm when the nova was closer to the horizon was around 4.8 but I was a little uncertain of the estimate due to the low altitude so I didn’t submit that one to AAVSO.
Will the current rise continue past the last peak? The only way to find out is to keep watching!
I also made visual estimates of the Classical Cepheid l Carinae and LBV (Luminous Blue Variable) η Carinae. I had aimed to make estimates of others (R Carinae and V Puppis) but didn’t quite get there. I was too busy having a good time looking at other objects through my Meade LX-90 ‘scope and sharing views with ASSA members.
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