(meteorobs) Important! Check your Leonids images of Nov. 15-18

[Denis Denisenko]

Dear meteor observers!

Possible Nova in Eridanus was discovered by famous Japanese astronomer 
Koichi Itagaki on Nov. 25.536 UT (CBET 2050) at magnitude 8.1.  It was 
then retrospectively found on ASAS images dated by as early as Nov. 
19.241 UT being yet brighter at 7.3 mag (AAVSO Special Notice #181).  
The star has 15th magnitude at quiescence.

No images of possible Nova Eridani are available between Nov. 10.236 UT 
when it was fainter than 14.0 and Nov. 19.241 UT.  Looks like the real 
maximum has been missed!  Since the spectrum of the star in outburst 
shows bright Balmer emission lines with expansion velocity of 3400-3600 
km/s, this object is likely a classical Nova rather than a cataclysmic 
variable of WZ Sge type.  This means that the real outburst amplitude 
should have been 13-14 magnitudes rather than the observed 7.5, and some 
time between Nov. 10th and 19th it *could* have been as bright as mag 
1-2!!!  But nobody knows it for sure.  Not yet!

Here is where your help is needed.  Please check your photos (and 
probably even videos) from the nights of 2009 Leonid shower activity 
containing Orion and its surrounding constellations.  The Nova is 
located near the Orion-Eridanus border, about 7 deg West and 2 deg South 
of Regulus.  Precise coordinates of the star are:

R.A. = 04h47m54.2s, Decl. = -10d10'43" (J2000.0)

The position of star is shown with blue dashes on the following chart 
(stars to 6.5m are shown):

http://hea.iki.rssi.ru/~denis/NovaEri2009Nov18.gif

If you find the images taken any time between Nov. 10 and Nov. 19 
covering the area of interest, please check them for the presence of the 
Nova Eridani 2009, or send them directly to me for the analysis and 
photometry via E-mail address below in my signature.  Also, feel free to 
send this message to other mailing list and circulate it among your 
fellow astronomers.  This is really a rare coincidence that many images 
of the sky were taken just in time during the Nova outburst because of 
the Leonid meteors activity, and reconstructing the light curve of this 
variable star would be very important.

Best regards,

Denis
--
Denis V. Denisenko
Space Research Institute
Profsoyuznaya st., 84/32
117997, Moscow, Russia
denis at hea.iki.rssi.ru