[vsnet-chat 1473] Nova Sct 1981

[John Isles <jisles@voyager.net>]

Further to the discussion of Dave Branchett's supposed nova or recurrent
object in Scutum:  Robert McNaught told me several years ago that he had
re-examined the RGO photo and concluded that the image was a flaw.  (See
Webb Society Deep-Sky Observer's Handbook, Volume 8, page 154.)  So the
object (if it exists, which is of course doubtful) may not be close to
the position measured from that photo and reported in IAUC.  A curious
point is that, when Dave Branchett spotted the object at magnitude 8 in
1981, he checked his star atlases, and found that he'd pencilled in a
star in this very position at magnitude 9 in 1978, so he suspected that
it might be a recurrent object.  There was a report of a positive
observation by an observer in Cyprus (Savvas Koushiappas) in 1991 or
1992.

Best wishes -- John Isles.

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