------------------------------------------------------------------- THE ASTRONOMER Electronic Circular No 1881 2003 Apr 28 16.24UT Ed:Guy M Hurst, 16,Westminster Close, Kempshott Rise, Basingstoke, Hants, RG22 4PP,England.Telephone/FAX(01256)471074Int:+441256471074 INTERNET: GUY@TAHQ.DEMON.CO.UK GMH at AST.STAR.RL.AC.UK WORLD WIDE WEB http://www.theastronomer.org ------------------------------------------------------------------- NOVA SAGITTARII 2003 Nicolas Brown, Quinns Rocks, Australia and Minoru Yamamoto, Okazaki, Japan have reported independent discoveries of a nova in Sagittarius at: RA 18h 40m DEC -33 26' (2000). Brown recorded it on T-Max film on Apr 25.73UT at magnitude 8.9 whereas Yamamoto noted it at magnitude 9.6 on Apr 26.735UT using a 200mm telephoto lens. He also measured the precise position as: RA 18h 40m 08.2s DEC -33 26' 37" (2000) and reported it was not present on films 2000 Apr 28 to 2003 Apr 5 with limiting magnitudes in the range 9.5-10.5. An investigation also shows that the object is NOT the nearby Mira- type variable V2377 Sgr. R. Kushida Yatsugatake South Base Observatory has reported on IAUC 8123 a fully precise position from an exposure of Apr. 27.7: RA 18h 40m 02.54s DEC -33o 26' 55.1" and notes the object is not present on the Digitized Sky Survey (DSS) red and blue images. L. Skuljan, University of Canterbury, reports on the same IAUC that a spectrogram of Apr 27.67UT with the Mt. John 1-m telescope shows numerous broad and bright emission lines on a generally weak continuum. Rod Stubbings, Australia reports via VSNET a visual estimate for Apr 27.531UT of 9.0. Doug West reports that he obtained a V magnitude of 9.65 on Apr 27.45UT, by comparison with Tycho 2 magnitudes. Katsumi Haseda, Japan, has reported a pre-discovery observation from photographs of Apr 26.762 when the nova was about magnitude 9.0 photographic. Guy M Hurst