Greetings fellow astrophiles!

UPDATE 7:40 p.m. Tonight is a go for our Nova Party! We’ll commence at 10 p.m. We hope you can join us!

1. Please check back here by 8:00 p.m. for the FINAL
announcement about time and location.

2. Please be judicious with your parking! If attending,
try to avoid hitting attendees with your headlights!

Nova location. Image from universetoday.com (click the image for their excellent summary).

The amateur astronomy twitter feeds and blog sites have been buzzing the last 24 hours about a new nova discovered in Delphinus (right near the border with Sagitta – the constellation it’s technically closer to). Astronomers estimate that 30 to 60 novae occur in the Milky Way each year (with an average of 40 according to Ref. [1] below), but there’s a lot of distance and dust that obscures many of their views from typical large-telescope amateur observers. This new nova is a rare treat for CNY viewers, as it is not only bright enough to see with binoculars from downtown Syracuse (as I did last night), but it’s in the Northern Hemisphere – viewable to our South. We won the North/South Pole count toss as well!

In order to take this rare event in, a few CNYO members are going to bring their scopes to the large parking area just south of Jamesville Beach tonight at 10:00 p.m. for an official “Scope Mob” (hosting the event south of Syracuse to avoid its pervasive light pollution). The map below is centered on the spot we expect to be at – but we’ll be checking the grounds later today to confirm it’s accessible (so please check back here around 8:00 p.m. for the official FINAL announcement).

We hope you can join us to take this rare event in! And maybe some other viewing (such as the Moon) as well!

Ref. 1: Prialnik, Dina (2001). “Novae”. In Paul Murdin. Encyclopedia of Astronomy and Astrophysics. Institute of Physics Publishing/Nature Publishing Group. pp. 1846–1856.