Naked eye nova in Scorpius!
Picture a small, incredibly massive - and incredibly dense - star, a white dwarf, revolving around a larger star so closely that it's continuously sucking gas away from the companion star. In such a situation the white dwarf eventually becomes overloaded (greed doesn't pay?) and a ferocious nuclear reaction starts. The result? A nova. An "exploding star." Such events are unusual - or at least unusual for us to easily get a glimpse at them - but we have such an event occuring right now in the constellation of Scorpius and so bright it can be seen by the naked eye. It's name: Nova Scorpii 2007
For a spectacular painting of a nova - and more background information - see this APOD entry.
Inconveniently (for some) , this is a morning event. Scorpius right now is low in the southeast just before dawn starts to lighten the sky. So to see this "new star" you have to get up early. How long will it be there? Maybe days - maybe weeks - no one can say. How bright will it get? Again, no one can say. When discovered a couple weeks ago it was magnitude 9 - very faint. Now it is magnitude 4 - certainly bright enough to be seen easily in dark skies. In light-polluted ones you may want to search with binoculars.
Should be easy to spot, but this is the first morning I knew about it and it is - of course - cloudy here. The American Association of Variable Stars Observers - AAVSO - keeps track of such events and publishes bulletins, as well as regular reports from other observers and charts with the magnitude of comparison stars. Here's what they had to say about Nova Scorpii's brightness:
The spectrum is similar to that of V723 Cas, indicating that this might be a "slow" nova. If this is a slow nova, it may take several weeks to brighten to maximum, with fluctuations in brightness along the way.
The Nova's position is declination –32° 21', right ascension 16h 57.7m.
Some useful links:
Latest estimates(Wasn't woking last time I tried, but . . .)
