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THE ASTRONOMER Electronic Circular No 2452      2008 May 28 10.06UT
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      Backup: gmh@wdcc1.bnsc.rl.ac.uk
WORLD WIDE WEB                         http://www.theastronomer.org
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THE ASTRONOMER 2008 ANNUAL MEETING
Thanks to a kind invitation from David Strange and NLO trustees, this 
year's annual meeting of 'The Astronomer' will be held at the Norman 
Lockyer Observatory, near Sidmouth in Devon on Oct 10-11. The Friday 
evening will be a joint meeting with Norman Lockyer Observatory Society 
and the Saturday will be devoted to the main TA meeting.

Full booking details will follow in due course and for the moment please 
make a note of these dates in your diaries. We have consulted the four 
main WWW diaries for national meetings and have found no clash.

The editor visited this venue at short notice earlier this month after 
hearing from David Strange and the site is amongst the best astronomical 
venues for a meeting I have ever come across. The numerous domes and 
large refractors coupled with a lecture theatre, exhibition, libraries, 
parking and excellent countryside are extremely impressive so your 
support for this event would be welcomed.

OPTICAL NOVA CANDIDATE IN MESSIER 31
M. Henze (Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik, MPE), V. 
Burwitz (MPE), W. Pietsch (MPE), A. Updike (Clemson University,CU), P. 
Milne, G. Williams (University of Arizona), D.H.
Hartmann(CU) report on ATEL 1546 the discovery of an optical nova 
candidate in Messier 31 on two 8x60s stacked R filter CCD images 
obtained with the robotic 0.60-m telescope with an E2V CCD (2kx2k) of 
the Livermore Optical Transient Imaging System (Super-LOTIS, located at 
Steward Observatory, Kitt Peak, Arizona, USA).

The object was first detected on 2008 May 26.45 and 27.45UT with 
respective magnitudes of 17.0 and 17.5. The position for the
nova candidate is:
RA  00h 43m 12.08s DEC +41 19' 15.8" (2000), which is 5'13" east and 
3'6" north of the core of M 31. All magnitudes given are obtained from a 
photometric solution using R magnitudes of the Local Group Survey M 31 
catalogue (Massey et al. 2006, AJ, 131, 2478). No object is visible at 
the position of the nova candidate on Super-LOTIS images of 2008 May 
16.45 UT (limiting R magnitude of ~17.5) and 2008 February 01.09 UT 
(limiting R magnitude of ~19.5). There is no entry in VizieR/CDS for 
this object and no minor planet could be found on this position using 
the MPC/IAU Minor Planet
Checker (see http://scully.harvard.edu/~cgi/CheckMP ).

NOVA OPHIUCHI 2008
Matthew Templeton and Elizabeth Waagen report on AAVSO Alert Notice 380 
that finder charts for this object may be plotted by entering the 
coordinates:
RA 17h 39m 50.93s DEC -23 50' 00.9" (J2000)
into VSP: http://www.aavso.org/observing/charts/vsp/
There are a few existing comparison stars to the southeast of the
variable on a C-scale chart; more comparison stars will be added as soon 
as a sequence has become available.

Guy M Hurst