We may still be waiting for T CrB, but within less than a month we’ve seen 2 bright southern hemisphere novae: V462 Lup and now PNV J10251200-5331109 (aka V572 Vel)!
Technically it’s still classed as a possible nova (PNV) before spectroscopic confirmation, although there was a positive Gamma-ray Space Telescope observation overnight while I was sleeping.
Australian John Seach (NSW) discovered this (at magnitude 5.7), and Andrew Pearce (WA) independently found it (magnitude 5.5) on June 25 .
This object has eta Carina at its upper left in this Stellarium screenshot, and below it the “false cross” which consists of stars from Carina and Vela.
This smaller field of view provides more detail with 3 stars at the upper left of the false cross asterism (if the cross was standing upright) at bottom of the picture.
The observing campaign for PNV J10251200-5331109 (aka V0572 Vel) reports the progenitor star as likely being a 22.2 blue star with large amplitude variability.
The sky conditions were not great last night, but I estimated the nova candidate at 4.8 through 15×70 binoculars, through gaps in cloud with DSLR photometry pending.
Rotate this 20 degree FOV AAVSO finder chart 90 degrees right to get the false cross asterism in the same orientation as the screenshots above.
This 8 degree FOV finder chart provides the comparison stars of interest at the moment within a binocular field or two.
As I write this there have been less than 40 observations submitted to the AAVSO International Database.
After being away for a couple of days, I read an email yesterday from Andrew Wendelborn (ASSA) before seeing the official announcements, so thanks for the early heads-up Andrew! The timing worked out well in general.
