[vsnet-alert 14716] Re: (fwd) nova candidate discovery - India

[Amar Sharma]

Dear Brian, Carl, and Taichi,

Thank you for your valuable inputs. I am not a variable star observer
whatsoever; have been just a very active visual deep sky observer and chase
known comets very actively.

I got an email from a senior technical assistant at AAVSO who says this is
a previously-unknown Mira variable star; its a discovery of a new Mira
star. And it will now be given an official name - Vxxxx Sgr (xxxx will be a
number) .

I am unclear on one thing yet of this experience:  Have I indeed discovered
a Mira star which was unknown before to be a Mira (even though this star is
tagged as IRAS 18322-1921). Or is it that I have been the first one to only
notice (discovery) its eruption / flaring / outburst (whatever is called
for a Mira's variability) in this current phase/time when it must be
happening every 9 months reaching 13th mag and was not observed ever before.

How does this object get credit now?  There has been a new 9th mag nova
report made on S&T about the one which is in the same region of the sky as
my Mira discovery. I am so disheartened that I cannot get the word out
about this. Could you let me know what CBAT and VSNET wishes to do with
this particular observation of mine, if this report is indeed valuable to
the scientific community?

Am eagerly awaiting a positive response from you folks. I really hope
something works in favour of this, which for our Indian and the world-wide
astronomy community would be a great record. Many thanks, Amar A. Sharma.

On Thu, Jun 28, 2012 at 6:32 AM, Brian Skiff <bas at lowell.edu> wrote:

>     This is indeed the well-catalogued red star, a Mira variable
> in fact, IRAS 18322-1921.  It is not catalogued as a variable, per se,
> but quite obvious. from the ASAS-3 database.  Probably the 'best'
> coordinates are:  18 35 10.48 -19 19 29.8  (J2000) from the 2MASS
> catalogue.
>     The ASAS-3 lightcurve shows that the star gets up to V ~13.0,
> but fades below the ASAS limit most of the time.  From a rough estimate
> of the peaks, the period seems to be around 9 months, very typical
> of Miras.
>     Anyway, this is not a nova, and Mr. Sharma has caught a very red
> star showing up extraordinarily bright in unfiltered CCD images ---
> a common beginner's mistake.  Better luck next time.
>
>
> \Brian
>
>
>
> On Thu, 2012-06-28 at 09:08 +0900, Taichi Kato wrote:
> > Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2012 11:40:44 +0530
> > Subject: Probable nova candidate discovery - India
> > From: Amar Sharma <amar10sharma at gmail.com>
>
> > Here are the exact coordinates of the most likely nova candidate.
> >
> > RA: 18h 35m 10.54s and DEC: -19=B0 19' 30"
> > Constellation: Sagittarius. Proximity of open star cluster M25.
> > Estimated magnitude (unfiltered) with Photometry tool from Maxim DL =3D
> App=
> > .
> > 11.5 mag
> > Image was taken un-filtered.
>
>   .....
>
> >
> > Interestingly SIMBAD lists a 17 Mag IR (infrared) source at the same
> > location as my suspect. Its called IRAS 18322-1921.
>
>
>