OS And (Nova Andromedae 1986)
On December 5th, 1986, nova hunter Mitsuri Suzuki of Ena City, Gifu, Japan, aimed his 200-mm telephoto lens at the Milky Way in northern Andromedae and began a routine exposure in his nova patrol program. Suzuki, a 28-year-old school teacher, had been hunting novae for three years when, on this night, his efforts were finally rewarded. He discovered a new star of photovisual magnitude 8.0 near the borders of Lacertae and Cassiopeiae and he caught it on its rise to maximum. The optical maximum occurred between December 7th and 8th with an apparent visual magnitude of approximately 6.3. The nova then faded quickly, taking only 20 days to decline 3 mags. below maximum (Kikuchi et al. 1988). Observations in the AAVSO International Database indicate OS And has faded below visual magnitude 16.5.
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| Visual light curve of OS And from the AAVSO International Database; September 26, 1986, to July 1, 1995. |