Nova Cygnus

In August 2001 a fairly bright nova appeared in the constellation of Cygnus. (co-ordinates RA=21h03m2s Dec=N48°45'52.9"). This is a photo of the Cygnus area taken with ASA200 film using a 50mm lens and 2 minutes exposure. This should be a wonderful picture of the Milky Way but the Milky Way is invisible from Manchester due to light pollution from street lights which leave the sky looking an ugly brown colour. The area of the image is 24°x36°. It has been reduced to half the size of the original Kodak Picture CD.


Using image processing it is possible to remove part of the effect of the light pollution as this has been done in this image which is taken from the one above. The two lines indicate the location of the nova which is probably just visible.	In this animation I have aligned the photograph with part of a map from a planetarium program called Guide. Notice how the camera has recorded the colours of the stars

This image clearly shows the nova. It is a 60 second exposure at 63.3 with the LX200 and the HX516 CCD camera. The field of view is now 12.7'x16.8' or about 130 times smaller than the 35mm photograph. Image taken 26/08/01 at 21:31GMT	The same field on 09/09/01 at 20:49GMT. The nova has faded slightly. Once again this is a 60 second exposure at 63.3 with the LX200 and the HX516 CCD camera.