[vsnet-chat 404] [vsnet-obs 6085] asteroid -Reply

[Berto Monard <lagmonar@csir.co.za>]

Hi Fraser,

as can be concluded from my story,  the (indeed) South African
wine, which is nice by the way, was not intoxicating.
Your remark at the end is not trivial. A lot was written not so long
ago, about the reporting of  new 'point sources of light' in the
night sky. It is just a matter of discretion if and how to report it. In
my case I awaited confirmation by monitoring the movement of
the object over two hours. 
What if the object was still at the same position. Maybe brighter.. 
I definitely will report such sightings in factual terms, ie not
specifically claiming to have seen a nova, because it could be a
supernova, a flare event, or even an asteroid on its way to
Australia maybe. From what I saw, Nysa definitely isn't!.  

Best regards,

Berto Monard,
Pretoria

>>> Fraser Farrell <fraserf@dove.net.au> 25/June/1997 08:34pm
>>>
G'day Berto,

   >when I looked at V4368 Sgr (Wakuda's star) I saw it 'double'
   >despite the fact I had only one glass of wine with my souper.

Is South African wine _that_ intoxicating? <g>

   >The object in question was about 12 arcseconds straight to the
   >North of V4368 and about 10.5 in magnitude. After my initial
   >excitement -how would you feel!- I decided to have a look
again in
   >two hours time. Maybe it would turn out to be a planetoid
(again),
   >as this is sky region near the ecliptic. After 2 hours indeed the
   >object at similar brigthness had moved to about 100 " straight
   >West of V. Unfortunately, it was a planetoid!

The asteroid 44 Nysa, according to GUIDE 5; at magnitude 10.7. 
At least
it was near opposition and moving quickly.  Many years ago I
embarrassed
myself by reporting 5 Astrea - near-stationary at quadrature - as a
nova!




cheers,
Fraser Farrell

http://vsnet.dove.net.au/~fraserf/   email: fraserf@dove.net.au
traditional: PO Box 332, Christies Beach, SA  5165, Australia

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