2008IAUC.8989....2H

L. A. Helton and C. E. Woodward, University of Minnesota; and K. Vanlandingham and G. J. Schwarz, West Chester University, report on Boller-and-Chivens spectroscopic observations (range 380-900 nm; resolution about 0.28 nm) of this nova that were obtained at the Steward Observatory Bok 2.29-m telescope on Sept. 25.19 and 25.25 UT. H_alpha exhibits a very broad (FWHM = 6450 km/s) tri-peaked profile with emission components at +3020, -140, and -3550 km/s. Permitted oxygen makes an appearance at 777.3 and 844.6 nm with broad (FWHM about 7600 and 7500 km/s, respectively), tri-peaked structure similar to H_alpha. The spectrum is heavily reddened with a complete absence of any emission features blueward of H_alpha. The high reddening is confirmed by the extinction maps of Schlegel et al. (1998, Ap.J. 500, 525), which indicate exceedingly high reddening along this line-of-sight but suffer from very large uncertainties since b about 0. Comparison with other novae at a similar early evolutionary state imply E(B-V) = 3 and a likely distance of 5 kpc, assuming a maximum absolute V magnitude of -9.