Luminous Red Nova visible in M31 with 6-inch

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Scott Harrington

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Nov 17, 2025, 10:10:30 PMNov 17

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Hey,

Just a friendly heads up that over on CloudyNights a few days ago, @Redbetter mentioned that there was a 15th-magnitude luminous red nova visible in the outskirts of the Andromeda Galaxy.

Well, I got a chance to see it last evening and using my 16-inch at 300x, placed it at about +14.75 using a nearby star of magnitude +15.0 and +14.5. It was a ton brighter than the star to the left of it on images!

I even took a peak at it with my 6-inch and was successful at 224x. But don't get me wrong, it was terribly faint and only popped occasionally. Still, seeing my first extragalactic nova is a real treat...especially since I've tried and failed before.