11 March 08
Nova In The Morning
Having daylight savings time begin while it is still winter is simply ludicrous. But yesterday I got up earlier, rather than later, at 5 AM PDT because I wanted to have a look at a newly-discovered nova in Cygnus — N Cyg 08. Such a star is not at all impressive to view — it just looks like any other faint 8th magnitude star — but the interesting thing is to follow the time course of their brightness over days and weeks. First you have to find it. This took me a long time — I haven’t seen that bit of the sky in a while and I can use more star-hopping practice (step 1 — orient your chart before you do anything else). I then marvel at how someone managed to recognize among all the hundreds of stars in the eyepiece that this one was new.
It puts one in a nice frame of mind, early morning astronomy.
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Just discovered this blog through the Bird by Bird one (I’m a bit slow sometimes…LOL).
Very cool about the new nova! Our 12 year old reads Sky & Telescope, but he didn’t mention this to me. We may have to check it out (although I hate getting up early).
p.s. my dh is a geographer too! :)
It wouldn’t be in Sky and Telescope — it was just discovered a week or so ago, and I think it’s too faint to be of popular interest — right now it’s about 9th magnitude. But that’s well within reach of a small telescope if you’re good at using star charts.
Ah, ok…that explains why he hadn’t told me. I hadn’t used a star chart in a couple of decades, so I would have to be really motivated to both get up early and wrangle with a star chart. ;)