------------------------------------------------------------------- THE ASTRONOMER Electronic Circular No 2571 2009 Aug 17 14.23UT 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 ------------------------------------------------------------------- POSSIBLE NOVA IN OPHIUCHUS S. Kiyota-san of Japan has confirmed the presence of an apparent new object, possibly a nova in Ophiuchus according to the VSNET alerts. The object, whose discoverer was not given, is located at: RA 17h 38m 19.70s DEC -26 44' 13.8" (2000) Kiyota provides the following measures: object YYYYMMDD(UT) mag code OPHnova2009 20090817.13292 13.54B OPHnova2009 20090817.13409 11.90V OPHnova2009 20090817.13531 10.42Rc OPHnova2009 20090817.13652 9.36Ic These measures were obtained with GRAS G1 at Mayhill, New Mexico 0.30-m L+FLI IMG1024 CCD (Mayhill, NM, USA). The object is likely a reddened (B-V = +1.6) nova. The AAVSO on their Special Notice 166 add that the object has no counterpart in either the USNO-B1.0 or 2MASS catalogs; however, a faint source is visible at these coordinates in both the DSS-II and 2MASS J images. The object is within the plane of the Milky Way and is in a very dense star field. It has not yet been spectroscopically confirmed as a nova. Finder charts for this object may be plotted by entering the coordinates above into AAVSO VSP: http://www.aavso.org/observing/charts/vsp/ Guy M Hurst