[Friends_of_SSASTROS] While we await...

[Mike McCabe]

...the candle of T Corona Borealis to fire off, I decided to rummage through my stuff and see what I could dredge up about the reporting history of this cataclysmic crown star. It was an interesting journey.

It's been widely reported that the last time T CrB erupted was back in February of 1946, with a prior eruption to that happening in 1866. Unlike modern times where we get our magazine issues literally three months in advance of their dates, in 1946 they were a bit more timely. So much so that the March issue had a brief report about the outburst that had just been noticed well into the prior month.

Astronomers then had been waiting with bated breath - no different than today - for the outburst that they knew was coming, but the timing details were more fuzzy back then. They believe that they may have a handle on it now, which is the reason for all the widespread excitement we've been seeing.

The very next issue of Sky&Tel, April 1946, had a much more comprehensive report on the outburst of T CrB. Then, as it is now, the big deal was getting as much spectroscopy on the system as early in the process as possible. The holy grail from an astronomy perspective would be getting spectrocscopic measurements during the initial outburst phases. It's never been done. Nova and supernova are invariably noticed after they've already outburst. That's why this one is such a big deal. With literally hundreds if not thousands of folks watching this star around the clock, the chances are high of getting professional equipment aimed at it as it blows up.
Witnessing the spectrum of the system as it lights up will help astronomers to better understand what causes novae and supernovae. The basics of what causes them is no longer a mystery, but there are a lot of finer details that they'd like to have filled in.


Page 16 of the April '46 S&T had a report about the rapid drop off in brightness of the nova T CrB. The graph corresponds well to the 1866 record, which lends confidence to the astronomer's prediction that this outburst will behave the same way. 

Page 17 contained the final details of S&T's reporting on the 1946 T CrB outburst.
So based on two previous observations of T CrB outbursts, astronomers today are confident that the system will most likely behave the same way for a new outburst, and based on detailed observations of T's brightness over the past year they think the time is near. Is it? Only time will tell, but one thing is for sure; never before has a recurrent nova system been so stared at so continuously by so many in the history of stargazing. One just needs to drop into the AAVSO website and have a gander at the observation submissions. The record goes all the way back to 1866 and as of this writing contains over 300,000 submissions and counting (in fact that number as of late has increased exponentially as observers submit up to 1500 observations a day). Astronomers are going to have a lot of data to work with this time around as they try to sift through the outburst process.

This is what you'll see at the AAVSO WebObs page for T CrB. The letters under the column labeled "filter" denote the bandwidth that the observation was taken in. For visual purposes, use the "Vis." or "V" magnitude estimates (only "Vis." denotes estimates made through the eyepiece, but the "V" CCD bandwidth comes close to what would be seen visually).
Here's the link to the AAVSO WebObs for T CrB;  https://apps.aavso.org/webobs/results/?star=T+CrB&page=56  I drop in there a few times a day to see what's going on (or not, as the case has been thus far). When this thing goes we want to know about it. While we may not be providing pertinent scientific data about the system, this will be one of the more significant astronomical events of our lifetime (if it actually happens ;-) so we don't want to miss out on it.

So get out there every clear night going forward. It's getting dark enough now by 9:00pm to see the area in binoculars. Get to know the starfield, become familiar with the layout, then if and when T CrB blows it will become immediately apparent to you* and you'll be witnessing one of the most powerful events that nature can produce - and it can produce some doozies!
Sincerely,
Mike McCabe
* You've probably read reports where alleged astronomers and other deep-thinking types have been hyping this thing up as possibly the greatest inspiration in eons, sure to cause countless neo-enthusiasts to become bona-fide pro astronomers. Umm, no. Considering that at most what it might do is add one tiny not-so-bright dot (2nd - 3rd magnitude is hardly "gleamingly bright" by any stretch of the definition) to a somewhat obscure area amongst the entire field of stars across the sky, well, for 99.9% of the people it will go entirely unnoticed unless you or I are there to show it to them. I ain't feeling the inspiration. Sure, we'll think it's great, but if my experience sharing 'amazing phenomena' with my better half and others like her is any indication, there'll likely be a lot of "that's nice, Honey" to go around and not so much "sign me up right now for a life of endless schooling and meager job opportunities."  


 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://ssastros.org/pipermail/friends_of_ssastros_ssastros.org/attachments/20240719/23c694b8/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: 1721400632151blob.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 552285 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://ssastros.org/pipermail/friends_of_ssastros_ssastros.org/attachments/20240719/23c694b8/attachment.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: 1721400906874blob.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 193942 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://ssastros.org/pipermail/friends_of_ssastros_ssastros.org/attachments/20240719/23c694b8/attachment-0001.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: 1721410021923blob.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 504977 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://ssastros.org/pipermail/friends_of_ssastros_ssastros.org/attachments/20240719/23c694b8/attachment-0002.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: 1721410440894blob.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 545023 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://ssastros.org/pipermail/friends_of_ssastros_ssastros.org/attachments/20240719/23c694b8/attachment-0003.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: 1721410947015blob.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 496510 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://ssastros.org/pipermail/friends_of_ssastros_ssastros.org/attachments/20240719/23c694b8/attachment-0004.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: 1721411307632blob.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 523549 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://ssastros.org/pipermail/friends_of_ssastros_ssastros.org/attachments/20240719/23c694b8/attachment-0005.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: 1721412482357blob.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 256774 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://ssastros.org/pipermail/friends_of_ssastros_ssastros.org/attachments/20240719/23c694b8/attachment-0006.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: 1721413054730blob.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 204940 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://ssastros.org/pipermail/friends_of_ssastros_ssastros.org/attachments/20240719/23c694b8/attachment-0007.jpg>