Recurrent Nova V745 Sco 2014 outburst

Thu, 02/06/2014 - 20:03

Rod Stubbings observed V745 Sco in outburst (mvis=9.0) on 2014 February 6.6 after observing it fainter than 13.0 24 hours prior.  The nova has subsequently been confirmed by Paul Camilleri (CMQ) and Steve O'Connor (OCN), with more data coming in.

Jeno Sokoloski has requested as much photometry as possible, and is also requesting spectroscopic followup from the community as well.  Several professional researchers are already working on getting X-ray and radio data for this nova, and optical data from the AAVSO community will be very useful for comparison to other wavelengths.

Sco is poorly placed in the morning sky right now, but this would be an interesting one to wake up early for!

Affiliation
American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO)
AAVSO Alert Notice 496 on V745 Sco
AAVSO Alert Notice 496 on the discovery and current status of the recurrent nova V745 Sco has been issued. It also contains observing recommendations and requests from Drs. Jeno Sokoloski and Brad Schaefer.

 

Good observing,  Elizabeth Waagen, AAVSO HQ

Affiliation
Variable Stars South (VSS)
First spectrum

Here is a spectrum of V745 Sco 10x180s with the Star Analyser 100 in the convergent beam of a 254mm SCT with focal reducer f/6.3, captured with an Atik 383 L+.

I've identified the lines with best guesses based on the literature that I've found. Spectra from the first phase of the 1989 outburst are almost identical - these can be found in Williams et al. 1991. The nova clearly has a strong He emission profile. Some interesting nebular lines developed quite quickly in 1989 - it will be interesting to see if they reappear.

The Ha line is very broad - but includes HeII 6678 at this resolution.

Note that the "emission" feature at around 8350 is the zero-order image of a faint background star.

Cheers

Jonathan