Observation by Dr Paul Leyland: M31N 2008-12a

Uploaded by

Dr Paul Leyland

Observer

Dr Paul Leyland

Observed

2023 Dec 08 - 20:45

Uploaded

2023 Dec 13 - 16:59

Objects

The Andromeda Galaxy (M31)

Equipment

0.5m Newtonian
QHY 600M CCD
No filter

Exposure

1800s in 15 subs, Median stacked.

Location

La Palma Hills, J22

Target name

Recurrent nova M31N 2008-12a in Messier 31

Title

M31N 2008-12a

About this image

This image was taken by Kevin Hills' robotic telescope, which is co-located with my observatory, at my request.

M31N 2008-12a is a recurrent nova which erupts annually. The 2023 outburst began at 2023-12-05 17:00 UT when it was R=18.3 according to Atel 16362.

By December 8 10:00 it had fallen to R=20.6 +/- 0.2 according to Hiroyuki Naito, with a 2400 second (300x8) exposure on a 1.6m reflector. 10 hours later it was just visible in the image above. It hasn't been measured yet but must be close to 21st magnitude. Extreme contrast stretching was required to make it visible but there is little doubt about the detection because the star lies within an arcsecond of the correct place and nothing else is visible at that location in the DSS2 collection.

Files associated with this observation

M31N-2008a.png (23.0 kB)

Like this image

Alan Thomas, Geof Lewis

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