(cba:news) Possible nova in Centaurus ASAS 133116-6357.6]

[Joe Patterson]

Dear CBAers,

This looks like a pretty good nova candidate, and is well placed in the 
evening sky.  We should definitely amp up our coverage of novae.  We 
don't generally expect significant variation on our usual timescale of 
minutes/hours.  But we really oughta invest some more time in looking, 
because some novae show definite fast variability... and also on the 
general principle that we don't really know until we look.

If it's basically a light bulb all night long, then revisit a few weeks 
  later and try again.  This bright (likely) nova will probably be a 
target of some UV/X-ray coverage over the next few weeks.  As usual, a V 
filter would be nice for such a bright star.

joe

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [vsnet-alert 11243]  Possible nova in Centaurus ASAS 133116-6357.6
Date: Wed, 13 May 2009 12:50:32 +0200
From: Grzegorz Pojmanski <gp at astrouw.edu.pl>
To: vsnet-alert at kusastro.kyoto-u.ac.jp

Possible nova in Centaurus ASAS 133116-6357.6

Grzegorz Pojmanski, Dorota Szczygiel and Bogumil Pilecki of Warsaw
University Astronomical Observatory report:
ASAS3V instrument of The All Sky Automated Survey (telephoto lens 200/2.8,
diameter 70mm + CCD + Johnsons V  filter, 3 minute exposures, pixel size
14.8 arcsec, rms astrometric accuracy - 4  arcsec)

has detected possible outburst of nova  located at
at RA = 13h 31m 16s  DEC = -63d 57'.6

Object was V=8.53 at its maximum and is currently fading at the rate
of 0.2 mag/day.

Several faint sources are present close to this position in the DSS 
image and
USNO-B catalog, so no progenitor could be suggested based on the ASAS
astrometry.

Observations
     DATE      UT                       HJD      V
04/05/2009 04:01:20 (May 04.168) 2454955.6718 invisible
08/05/2009 05:38:14 (May 08.235) 2454959.7391 8.533
11/05/2009 02:34:38 (May 11.108) 2454962.6114 9.121
11/05/2009 03:21:22 (May 11.140) 2454962.6441 9.134

Light curve and images can be found on
http://www.astrouw.edu.pl/cgi-asas/asas_disc/133116-6357.6,4900

Regards, Grzegorz Pojmanski