The Cat’s Paw or Bear Claw nebula (NGC 6334, Gum 64 and other designations), near the “stinger” of Scorpius.
A 9 minute Seestar S50 image, taken from suburban Adelaide on June 24 at around 1:30am.
This relatively bright emission nebula is slightly larger in angular size in the night sky than the full Moon, and was discovered by John Herschel in 1837.
Also, a picture of an actual cat (called Cowie) with real paws is included for reference. 🙂
An optical transient, initially designated PNV J19450648+1822422, was found in Sagitta with the NMW-TexasTech survey on August 25 as detailed in the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams. Once confirmed as a nova, the designation was changed to N Sge 2026. It’s also known as V0488 Sge since it is (amazingly) the 488th variable in Sagitta.
Sagitta (Sge), the arrow, propelled by the bow of Sagittarius the archer, is a small constellation in the northern sky below Aquila, as shown in the wide-field Stellarium screenshot above. The approximate location of the nova is also shown.
The first image above results from stacking a hundred or so images, with noise removal, taken on August 27 starting at about 10:05pm with my Seestar S50. The nova is at centre and before discovery would not have been visible in this field.
The second image is a screenshot of photometry (using Tycho Tracker) carried out with a median stack of 42 of the best individual images. The small green squares in the lower left and right quadrants mark the location of the comparison stars I used for the photometry, and these stars are also visible in the first image.
The nova has so far reached a maximum visual magnitude of 6.9, up from its precursor magnitude of 21.3. At the time of writing, this is a plot of most visual observations submitted to AAVSO since discovery, with mine under the crosshairs. It is currently in decline but could very well become brighter again, and as always, we’ll see.
Sagitta fills the field of view of my 8×42 binoculars, and although I observed the location of the nova while imaging it with the Seestar, the nova and comparison star magnitudes, combined with a more than 99% illuminated Moon (effectively full) to the upper right of the field, made a visual estimate very difficult. As Luna rises later over the next few days, visual observation will be easier, but the nova may also be dimmer. The Seestar’s small field of view and sensitive imager provides an effective approach under these conditions.
An AAVSO finder chart suitable for attempting a binocular or telescopic visual observation is shown below, at least until it falls below magnitude 9.
In 2020 when other bird flu strains (H7N7, H5N2) led to the killing of hundreds of thousands of chickens and several thousand turkeys and emus on Australian farms, I wrote that:
If these events continue or even increase in frequency, I can’t help but wonder whether there will be calls to dismantle free range, in favour of barn laid or worse, a regress to caged systems; neither, a good outcome for the animals, but I can imagine it being “declared” necessary by authorities.
As I write this, there are 220 confirmed H5N1 bird flu cases in Australia, the last continent to be affected. Most of those cases are in South Australia. To reduce the risk of spread to free range chickens, an ABC News article on Aug 4 reports that the consumer watchdog (ACCC):
…has extended its pause on free-range egg labelling enforcement as some farmers move hens indoors to protect them from H5 bird flu on state government advice.
It goes on to quote the ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) as saying that:
If they’ve got their birds housed, there’s an obligation to communicate that, particularly to retailers, but also more widely, to the consumers.
In the same article, the owner of a pasture-raised egg farm in Victoria is quoted as saying that:
I definitely don’t like the idea that someone can be marketing their eggs as free range when they’re not actually living like that.
He wants to see temporary label changes, allowing farmers to use the same cartons.
There’s a two-to-three-month wait to get a carton in … and when we do a minimum order, it’s 60,000 cartons.
It really wouldn’t be hard to have a sticker or something that we applied to our carton saying, ‘Temporarily inside due to government order’ or ‘during this outbreak.
I don’t think they should be able to continue just pumping out cartons of eggs, calling them free range when the birds are locked in for two or three months at a time.
The article ends with this:
SA’s chief vet, Dr Skye Fruean, said it was a “very dynamic situation and we are remaining really closely engaged with our poultry sector.”
She said a mandatory housing order was not in place yet, but was being considered.
Of course we want to reduce the likelihood of spread of diseases like H5N1.
The longer term worry however, is that this could be a slippery slope to a situation in which all chickens are kept inside due to potential pandemic risk. In the case of egg-laying hens, that may mean further delays to ending the caged egg system.
There is of course another approach that avoids the whole problem, but that’s not part of the public conversation.