Waxing Moon over Timor Cottage, Coonabarabran, NSW.
Nova Sagittarii 2015 (arrowed) at magnitude +5 or so and fading, after peaking at mag 4 the previous week. The nova star is likely a white dwarf drawing material from a companion star and flaring into brilliance when the accumulated material erupts in a thermonuclear explosion. The nova is in the centre of the “teapot” configuration of Sagittarius the archer, with Scorpius at right in this frame, taken at dawn on March 26, 2015 from New Mexico, with the 50mm lens and Canon 6D for a stack of 3 x 2 minute exposures at f/2.8 and ISO 800. Numerous Messier objects are in the frame, notably the star clusters M6 and M7 just right of centre, and the nebula M8 above centre.
Nova Sagittarii on the morning of March 28, 2015, from New Mexico, as the nova was reported to have brightened to magnitude +5. The focal length nicely frames the Teapot asterism of Sagittarius. I shot this with the 135mm telephoto at f/2.2 for a stack of 5 x 1.5 minute exposures at ISO 800 with the Canon 5D MkII, plus one exposure of the same length but taken thru the Kenko Softon filter and layered in Photoshop to add the star glows and bring out the nova more. Camera on the Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer tracker.
