I woke up early on Tuesday morning, 17 March 2015, as I wanted to try to photograph the newly discovered nova in the constellation of Sagittarius.

Open: Tuesday, 17 March 2015, 0437 MST Temperature: 57°F

Session: 794 Conditions: Clouds in southern sky

I didn't use the 8" telescope for this session. I set up my D7000 DSLR on a photographic tripod on the observatory patio. Sagittarius was visible in the southeast but there were clouds hiding some of the constellation's stars. The nova, magnitude a little brighter than +6, was not visible to the naked eye. At 0445 MST I viewed the nova using my 12x70 binoculars.

I then began preparing to photograph the nova. I first did a focus test on the star Altair using the DSLR lens Bahtinov Mask. This cropped image, f/5.6, 2 seconds, ISO 25600, FL 105mm, shows the in-focus diffraction pattern:

I did several photographs of the constellation Sagittarius using various exposure settings. This f/4.5, 15 seconds, ISO 6400, FL 35mm, shows the nova near the middle of the "teapot". Mouseover or tap on the image to see a marker for the nova.

Mouseover or tap on image to see nova marker

For comparison, this photograph of Sagittarius was taken 7 August 2013 and there is no star at the nova's position:

Cloud cover at Sagittarius began increasing by 0458 MST, so I ended the sky photography.

Close: Tuesday, 17 March 2015, 0507 MST Temperature: 56°F

---

Comments are welcome using Email. If you are on Twitter you can use the button below to tweet this report to your followers. Thanks.

Tweet

---

Previous report

Cassiopeia Observatory Home Page