V5558 Sgr, a nova that went into outburst in April (see Special Notices 44 and 45), continues to increase in brightness. The last reports indicate that this nova has reached V=8.6, brightening by about 0.02mag per day. We have produced a new sequence, based on recent calibration from Sonoita Research Observatory along with nearby Tycho2 and GCPD stars. You can download this sequence as part of the VSP chart:
P Cyg (2014+37A) is the prototype of massive stars with high mass outflow; it is characterized by blue-shifted emission lines along with red-shifted absorption lines. Surprisingly, we've never created a Variable Star of the Season article for this neat star - I'll have to make sure that happens soon.
Further to AAVSO Special Notice #44, 1804-18 Nova Sgr 2007 has been given the name V5558 Sgr by N. N. Samus, Institute of Astronomy, Russian Academy of Sciences, according to IAU Circular 8832 (Daniel W. E. Green, ed.).
CBET 931 (Gareth V. Williams, ed.) announces the discovery of a possible nova [V5558 Sgr] in Sagittarius by Yukio Sakurai, Mito, Ibaraki-ken, Japan, at magnitude 10.3 on two 20-s CCD exposures taken on Apr. 14.777 UT. Neither the USNO catalogue nor the Digitized Sky Survey indicates any precursor at the position of the new object.
K. Itagaki, Yamagata, Japan, provides the following position measured from his unfiltered CCD image that showed N Sgr 07 at magnitude 9.8 on Apr. 19.745 UT:
The cataclysmic variable star BZ UMa is currently experiencing an outburst which is peculiar for that star. Historically, BZ UMa has outbursts every 312 +/-114 days (although it has been much more regular in the past decade). These outbursts are similar to regular UGSU outbursts with a fast rise and a short decay over four days and are absent of any superhumps or other periodicity. However, no superoutbursts of the type also associated with UGSU stars have been detected in BZ UMa despite good observational coverage since 1972.
Rod Stubbings reports via Daisaku Nogami/VSNET that the cataclysmic variable GW Lib is currently in outburst, at a visual magnitude of 13.8. Follow-up observations are urgently requested. The object is located at
As reported in CBET 900, Hideo Nishimura (Miyawaki, Kakegawa, Shizuoka-ken) and Yuji Nakamura (Kameyama, Mie, Japan) have discovered a possible new nova [V2615 Oph] around magnitude 10. The position is
17:42:44.00 -23:40:35.1 J2000
Naito and Narusawa at Nishi-Harima Astronomical Observatory obtained a low-resolution spectrogram that indicates this is an Fe-II type nova, with typical P-Cyg line profiles.
You can draw a chart of the region using the coordinates above and VSP:
