Return to Short Projects and Targets of Opportunity
On Jan 6 2002, N. J. Brown from Australia discovered an object that had not been present in his image taken 15 days earlier. Following established practice he then reported his possible discovery to the IAU Central Bureau of Astronomical Telegrams (CBAT). CBAT Director Dan Green, and other astronomers he contacted, had difficultly obtaining confirmation due to poor weather but eventually the required images were obtained. Subsequently it was discovered by Jim Bedient that the nova could have been discovered as early as January 1st since it was present in the freely available Stardial images!
This animation includes images I have extracted from the database for the folowing dates - Nov 19th 2001 and January 1st, 2nd, 5th and 10th 2002. The nova is clearly visable and could have been detected by any one of you readers.
Incidently there is also another star present in the November image that is not seen in later images and this is under investigation as you read this.
In collaboration with the Remote Astronomical Society Observatory
Martin Nicholson - Daventry, United Kingdom.
This page was last updated on December 24th 2007.