Possible Nova in Cepheus

Following the posting on the Central Bureau's Transient Object Confirmation Page about a possible Nova in Cep (TOCP Designation: PNV J23080471+6046521) we performed some follow-up of this object remotely through the 0.43-m f/6.8 reflector + CCD of ITelescope network (MPC Code  I89 - Nerpio, Spain). 

On our images taken on February 02.8, 2013 we can confirm the presence of an optical counterpart with unfiltered CCD magnitude 9.8 at coordinates:

R.A. = 23 08 04.70, Decl.= +60 46 52.0

(equinox 2000.0; USNO-B1.0 catalogue reference stars).

Our annotated confirmation image (click on it for a bigger version):

An animation showing a comparison between our confirmation image and the archive POSS2/UKSTU plate (R Filter - 1991). Click on the thumbnail for a bigger version:

Kazuyoshi Imamura (Okayama Univ. of Sci. team, JAPAN) reports on vsnet-alert mailing list that they "succeeded in obtaining a low-resolution spectrum (R~400) of the PNV J23080471+6046521 (in Cep) on February 2.526 UT at the OUS (Okayama Univ. of Sci.) observatory......From our result, this object is thought to be a classical nova (Fe II class)"

Credit: K. Imamura (Okayama Univ. of Sci. team, JAPAN)

UPDATE - February 03, 2013

According to Cbet No. 3397, PNV J23080471+6046521 is now NOVA CEPHEI 2013. This nova has been discovered by Koichi Nishiyama and Fujio Kabashima (Japan) on two 40-s unfiltered CCD frames (limiting magnitude 13.5) taken around Feb. 2.4119 UT using a 105-mm f/4 camera lens (+ SBIG STL6303E camera). Spectra confirming the nature of the nova have been obtained by K. Imamura (see above) and M. Fujii (Bisei Astronomical Observatory).

Ernesto Guido & Nick Howes