POSSIBLE NOVA IN CENTAURUS
Grzegorz Pojmanski, Dorota Szczygiel, and Bogumil Pilecki, Warsaw
University Astronomical Observatory, report their discovery of a possible
nova on 3-min CCD exposures taken with a 70-mm-aperture 200-mm-f.l. f/2.8
camera lens (+ Johnson V filter) in the course of the All-Sky Automated
Survey; they provided the object's position as R.A. = 13h31m16s, Decl. =
-63d57'.6 (equinox 2000.0), adding that there are numerous faint sources
close to this position in a Digitized Sky Survey image. ASAS-3 V-band
magnitudes for the variable: May 4.168 UT, [14: (presumed; not detected);
8.235, 8.53; 11.108, 9.12; 11.140, 9.13. A light curve and ASAS-3 images
are posted at
http://www.astrouw.edu.pl/cgi-asas/asas ... 357.6,4900.
M. Templeton, AAVSO, reports (via AAVSO Special Notice 158) that L. Elenin
(Moscow, Russia) has observed the variable at V = 9.69 on May 13.466,
remotely using the Tzec Moan telescope (0.15-m f/7.3 refractor + CCD presumed)
at the Pingelly Observatory near Perth, W. Australia, providing position end
figures 15s.76, 38".5 for the new object. There is a very red USNO-B1.0-
catalogue star with position end figures 16s.062, 39".26 (red mag 17.2).
E. Guido and G. Sostero report that they obtained unfiltered CCD images
remotely with a 0.25-m f/6 Ritchey-Chretien telescope at the RAS Observatory
near Moorook, Australia, on May 13.57 that yield magnitude about 8.6 for
the variable and position end figures 15s.77, 38".6 (UCAC-2-catalogue
reference stars). Comparison with an Anglo-Australian Observatory Schmidt
red plate (limiting magnitude about 20), obtained on 1997 Feb. 5, shows that
this position is nearly coincident with a field star with magnitude about 15
whose position end figures are 15s.68, 38".6 (however, the extreme stellar
crowding due to nearby field stars makes this measurement rather difficult);
they have posted their image at
http://tinyurl.com/qlbesc.
NOTE: These 'Central Bureau Electronic Telegrams' are sometimes
superseded by text appearing later in the printed IAU Circulars.
2009 May 13 (CBET 1800) Daniel W. E. Green