Background

The night sky may seem eternal and never-changing, but ask any Ancient Greek and they’d tell you that’s not the case. In March 2021 a nova star was detected, and word quickly spread around the astronomical community. It was fairly bright, especially so soon after being detected, so well within the limits of my telescope and camera. The weather was fairly grotty but there was a short enough break in the clouds to quickly gather some subs. It took a bit of work and staring at star charts to actually identify the nova within the initial wide field of view — check out the example data below and you’ll see what I mean!