VARIABLE OF THE MONTH:

U SCORPII

During 1987, a couple of modest headlines in the astronomical press announced an outburst of the recurrent nova U Sco. The outburst had been discovered by me after years of uneventful monitoring.

Subsequently I have monitored the field well over a thousand times, and then. . . During the small hours of 1999 February 25, I checked the sky three times, only to see wall to wall cloud. A few hours later an Email announced that our colleague Patrick Schmeer of Belgium had discovered the beginning of an outburst that morning. Such is the luck of the draw!

Astronomers with access to advanced equipment are having a field day observing the star in various wavelengths, taking spectra and investigating its orbital eclipses. The outbursts are not predictable and it makes good scientific sense to check the field even when an outburst is not expected, as I did up to 1987 and subsequently. So here is a chance for CANOPUS readers to help the astronomical community by reporting the next outburst. You do not need any brightness estimating skills, it is only necessary to check whether the star is visible or not.

The field is not as easy to identify as some of the fields which I have described but then we cannot have everything, can we? Finding the field may not be easy the first time but if you look often enough, finding it will become second nature to you. I shall be glad to supply additional finding information to anyone interested.

Enjoy recurrent nova hunting!

Danie Overbeek