Outburst of U Scorpii

Hi all, one of the famous recurrent novae known as U Scorpii has gone into a rare outburst. I have been following this one for many years hoping to be the one to catch it. It was dicovered from Japan just over 24 hours ago. I managed to get a shot of this nova with my Canon 6D at 200mm last night at maximum light it seems. Visually I estimated it's brightness at magnitude 7.8  https://www.flickr.c...eposted-public/  Keith.

Great stuff Keith, and many thanks for keeping us up to date with these outbursts. 

Clear skies to you, 

Darren. 

Thanks Darren, it’s already faded to magnitude 9 in about 24 hours, and will do so further over the next few days. 

it was thought for many years that it goes into outburst every 10 years or so, the interval seems now to be 6 years. This one is very close to becoming a supernova, how long until that one?

Keith. 
 

Hi Keith,

That's seems like a big difference both in terms of the change in magnitude and its change in activity of the years. With all the talk in recent years about Betelgeuse going supernovsa, imagine if was 'U Scorpii' - Exciting times!

Clear skies to you,

Darren.