Nova Delphini 2013

Yesterday, i saw an alert notice about a naked eye nova in Delphinus. AAVSO also prepared a binocular chart for Nova Del 2013. It is currently at fifth magnitude so one needs at least binoculars to see from a city. Tonight, i checked the nova and found easily even under heavy light pollution and near full moon.

Beautiful Trio

Yesterday, i saw Venus after sunset. Although there was no other object visible to naked eye, my 10x50 binocular revealed Jupiter and Mercury. As sky darkens, Jupiter got visible to naked eye but i needed to stop observation to take care of my kid. After kid slept, i checked Sky and Telescope's May and June 2013 issues. Especially, June 2013 issue has an article about seeing these three object in daylight. I decided to prepare for next evening.
Today, i prepared my EOS 1100D camera and binoculars before sunset. As Sun sets, i scanned the sky with my binoculars. About 5-10 minutes after sunset i saw Venus. A few minutes later Jupiter revealed. I needed to wait for a few more minutes for Mercury. I was only able to see Venus with naked eye then. About 30-40 minutes after sunset, all three planets were easy to see with naked eye although their altitudes were lower than 10 degrees. I took many shots, one of which is this:

I catched Jupiter just before hiding behind the building. I will continue to observe the planets, their relative location changes very fast indeed.

AAVSO Binocular Program

AAVSO has a new program for binocular observers. AAVSO Binocular Program consists of 153 stars and most of the stars have minimum brightness of 9.5 magnitude. Observers in cities cannot see that faint stars but the list contains many brighter stars as well. AAVSO also updated their charting tool VSP (Variable Star Plotter) so that you can create special binocular charts for these stars.