Fetching first spectra of potential upcomming reccurent nova T CrB
T Corona Borealis (T CrB) is a cataclymic binary star classfied as recurrent nova. A first outburst was observed in 1866 by John Birmingham. Potentially earlier outbursts may have been observed in CY 1217 and 1787 as well. In CY 1946 a flare up has been observed which leads to the theory of a period of rougly 80 years in which outburst can be expected. If this happens the brightness of the star might change from rougly 10 mag. to 2 mag. making the star visible for the naked eye in the constellation Corona Borealis.
Therefore, it was predicted that in CY 2024 a new outburst can be expected. However the outburst did not happen. This is the reason that a lot of Astronomers are allocating observation time to this target in order to detect changes which might provides a early warning of an upcomming outburst.
Taking spectra gives an insight, what's happens in the binary system. Tautenburg Observatory collected some high resolution spectra within the timeframe of Januar 11th, 2025 to Feb 09th, 2025 showing an increrase in the rquivalentwidth for the H-Alpha lines indicating increase mass flow accretion disk. Futhermore they state that the exiting temperature of the observed feature in the spectra indicated a temperture of more than 40.000 K
Meanwhile, I was able to take a first high resolution spectrum using the Friesenheimer Lichteimer with a spectral resolution of about R=15000.
I'm happy that I can get data from a 10mag star. Fore sure the S/N is not yet very good, but with the next observations I'll increase exposure time to improve signal / noise. in the profile we see an double peak feature which normaly can be expected in case of a rotating disc. It will be very interesting to see how this double peak feature developing. From study of Be-Stars it's well know that such an unsymmetric feature is driven by a region this different density of hydrogen gas, potentially caused by the hot spot. This hot spot is created by the mass transfer from the companion star.
With the next nights with sufficiant waether conditions I'll montor potential changes in the H-Alpha profile.
So more to come.