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According to reports in The Astronomer's Telegram, a star in the region of the constellation of Cassiopeia has just gone nova, and the glow is still visible in the night sky. If you live in the Northern Hemisphere and have even a basic telescope, you might want to head out and point it in that direction. The first detection was made on 18 March 2021 by amateur astronomer Yuji Nakamura from the Mie Prefecture in Japan. In four frames captured using a 135-millimeter lens and a 15-second exposure, a bright, magnitude 9.6 glow was visible where none had been just...

The nova (left) and the same patch of sky four days earlier. (Yuji Nakamura/NAOJ) According to reports in The Astronomer's Telegram, a star in the region of the constellation of Cassiopeia has just gone nova, and the glow is still visible in the night sky. If you live in the Northern Hemisphere and have even a basic telescope, you might want to head out and point it in that direction. The first detection was made on 18 March 2021 by amateur astronomer Yuji Nakamura from the Mie Prefecture in Japan. In four frames captured using a 135-millimeter lens and a...

An amateur astronomer just spotted a strange new object in the sky. And it’s bright enough for you to see with binoculars from your backyard. The discovery image (left) of a new nova that recently appeared in the constellation Cassiopeia. The right image shows how the same region of the sky appeared just four days prior. Yuji Nakamura At around 7 P.M. JST on the evening of March 18, Japanese amateur astronomer Yuji Nakamura spotted something strange: A new point of light in the familiar constellation Cassiopeia the Queen. Researchers at Kyoto University quickly followed up using the 3.8-meter Seimei...