Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Ephemeris for Tuesday, August 20th.  The sun rises at 6:51.  It’ll be up for 13 hours and 48 minutes, setting at 8:39.  The moon, at full today, will rise at 8:07 this evening.

There’s a new nova visible to the unaided eye, well just barely, if the moon wasn’t out.  “New nova” is kind of redundant because Nova is Latin for new,  The entire Latin term is Nova Stellum or new star.  It isn’t really a new star, but one that brightened catastrophically, siphoning gas off a companion red giant star.  At least that’s what we think.   Detailed analysis will come later.  It’s informal name is Nova Delphinus, which lies between the tiny constellation of Delphinus the dolphin and Sagitta the arrow in and near the Summer Triangle.  http://www.skyandtelescope.com has a finder chart.  It’s best to use binoculars to locate it.  The Arrow points right to it, while the two stars that cross the body of the dolphin also point to it.  Novae are unusual, but not rare.

Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.  They may be different for your location.

Addendum

My finder chart for Nova Dephinus 2013. Created using Cartes du Ceil (Sky Charts)

The Summer Triangle with Delphinus and Sagitta. Created using Stellarium and The Gimp.