[IAUC] CBET 1800: 20090513 : POSSIBLE NOVA IN CENTAURUS

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                                                  Electronic Telegram No. 1800
Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams
INTERNATIONAL ASTRONOMICAL UNION
M.S. 18, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.
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POSSIBLE NOVA IN CENTAURUS
     Grzegorz Pojmanski, Dorota Szczygiel, and Bogumil Pilecki, Warsaw
University Astronomical Observatory, report their discovery of a possible
nova on 3-min CCD exposures taken with a 70-mm-aperture 200-mm-f.l. f/2.8
camera lens (+ Johnson V filter) in the course of the All-Sky Automated
Survey; they provided the object's position as R.A. = 13h31m16s, Decl. =
-63d57'.6 (equinox 2000.0), adding that there are numerous faint sources
close to this position in a Digitized Sky Survey image.  ASAS-3 V-band
magnitudes for the variable:  May 4.168 UT, [14: (presumed; not detected);
8.235, 8.53; 11.108, 9.12; 11.140, 9.13.  A light curve and ASAS-3 images
are posted at http://www.astrouw.edu.pl/cgi-asas/asas_disc/133116-6357.6,4900.
M. Templeton, AAVSO, reports (via AAVSO Special Notice 158) that L. Elenin
(Moscow, Russia) has observed the variable at V = 9.69 on May 13.466,
remotely using the Tzec Moan telescope (0.15-m f/7.3 refractor + CCD presumed)
at the Pingelly Observatory near Perth, W. Australia, providing position end
figures 15s.76, 38".5 for the new object.  There is a very red USNO-B1.0-
catalogue star with position end figures 16s.062, 39".26 (red mag 17.2).
E. Guido and G. Sostero report that they obtained unfiltered CCD images
remotely with a 0.25-m f/6 Ritchey-Chretien telescope at the RAS Observatory
near Moorook, Australia, on May 13.57 that yield magnitude about 8.6 for
the variable and position end figures 15s.77, 38".6 (UCAC-2-catalogue
reference stars).  Comparison with an Anglo-Australian Observatory Schmidt
red plate (limiting magnitude about 20), obtained on 1997 Feb. 5, shows that
this position is nearly coincident with a field star with magnitude about 15
whose position end figures are 15s.68, 38".6 (however, the extreme stellar
crowding due to nearby field stars makes this measurement rather difficult);
they have posted their image at http://tinyurl.com/qlbesc.


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                         (C) Copyright 2009 CBAT
2009 May 13                      (CBET 1800)              Daniel W. E. Green