High Cadence Millimagnitude Photometric Observation of V1112 Persei (Nova Per 2020)

Volume 49 number 2 (2021)

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Neil Thomas

Department of Astronautical Engineering, United States Air Force Academy, CO 80840; neil.thomas@afacademy.af.edu

Kyle Ziegler

Department of Astronautical Engineering, United States Air Force Academy, CO 80840; neil.thomas@afacademy.af.edu

Peter Liu

Department of Astronautical Engineering, United States Air Force Academy, CO 80840; neil.thomas@afacademy.af.edu

Abstract

The private Lookout Observatory (LO) monitored the classical nova V1112 Persei on 37 nights spanning over 80 days, beginning shortly after its discovery by Seiji Ueda on 25 November 2020. Images were captured at a high cadence, with exposure lengths of initially less than 2 seconds and with some sessions lasting more than ten hours. The standard error of the photometry was typically better than 5 thousandths of a magnitude (5 mmag). This cadence and precision allowed for not only the observation of the expected dimming of the nova, but also variability having a period of 0.608 ± 0.005 day. These data complement the publicly available photometry from the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO) and the resultant data are combined to perform this photometric analysis. This paper does not attempt an in-depth physical analysis of the nova from an astrophysical perspective.