2009CBET.1800....1P

Grzegorz Pojmanski, Dorota Szczygiel, and Bogumil Pilecki, Warsaw University Astronomical Observatory, report their discovery of a possible nova on 3-min CCD exposures taken with a 70-mm-aperture 200-mm-f.l. f/2.8 camera lens (+ Johnson V filter) in the course of the All-Sky Automated Survey; they provided the object's position as R.A. = 13:31:16, Decl. = -63d57'.6 (equinox 2000.0), adding that there are numerous faint sources close to this position in a Digitized Sky Survey image. ASAS-3 V-band magnitudes for the variable: May 4.168 UT, [14: (presumed; not detected); 8.235, 8.53; 11.108, 9.12; 11.140, 9.13. A light curve and ASAS-3 images are posted at http://www.astrouw.edu.pl/cgi-asas/asas_disc/133116-6357.6,4900. M. Templeton, AAVSO, reports (via AAVSO Special Notice 158) that L. Elenin (Moscow, Russia) has observed the variable at V = 9.69 on May 13.466, remotely using the Tzec Moan telescope (0.15-m f/7.3 refractor + CCD presumed) at the Pingelly Observatory near Perth, W. Australia, providing position end figures 15s.76, 38".5 for the new object. There is a very red USNO-B1.0- catalogue star with position end figures 16s.062, 39".26 (red mag 17.2). E. Guido and G. Sostero report that they obtained unfiltered CCD images remotely with a 0.25-m f/6 Ritchey-Chretien telescope at the RAS Observatory near Moorook, Australia, on May 13.57 that yield magnitude about 8.6 for the variable and position end figures 15s.77, 38".6 (UCAC-2-catalogue reference stars). Comparison with an Anglo-Australian Observatory Schmidt red plate (limiting magnitude about 20), obtained on 1997 Feb. 5, shows that this position is nearly coincident with a field star with magnitude about 15 whose position end figures are 15s.68, 38".6 (however, the extreme stellar crowding due to nearby field stars makes this measurement rather difficult); they have posted their image at http://tinyurl.com/qlbesc.