It was nice and clear this morning when I went out to look for the naked eye nova in the constellation Scorpius. Scorpius is nice and high in the sky down here in the Tropics. Up in the cold North, binoculars would help, once you figure out exactly where to look.
I saw the nova but it was dim (easy in the binocs) and snapped a picture too. I cropped the picture to show only the area to the right and to the left of Epsilon Scorpius. It is a six second exposure with the camera on a tripod. You may need to click on it to see it well.
The picture is oriented about the same as central portion of the drawing on skytonight dot com. The two stars to the right of Epsilon and the three stars to the left are pretty easy to spot in my picture. Just remember that the picture is zoomed way in compared to the drawing.
I also labeled some of the stars on the picture. They match up with stars that are labeled on a detailed finder chart published by the AAVSO. The nova is labeled V1280. Remember that the picture is only showing a teeny tiny part of the chart.
1 comment:
See the cute little pair of stars located about 10 o'clock from epsilon scorpii? Well, the star that is closer to epsilon really doesn't look that bright. I got carried away in photoshop and made it too bright.
Post a Comment