COMMISSION 27 OF THE I. A. U.
          INFORMATION BULLETIN ON VARIABLE STARS
                       NUMBER 845

	                              Konkoly Observatory
        	                      Budapest
                	              1973 November 6


               NOVA SAGITTARII 1962



    With the Rodman blink microscope I discovered a probable nova
on two plates taken by Dr. Dorrit Hoffleit with the 7.5-inch Cook
triplet at the Maria Mitchell Observatory. The magnitude of the nova
was about 8.4 pg on the plate taken on JD 37818, and it was fainter
than the plate limit (about 15.0m) on JD 37929. Plates taken on the
intervening days yielded the light curve in Figure 1. Unfortunately
there were no previous plates closer in time to JD 37818 than 37795,
so that the exact date of outburst cannot be determined from these
data. On JD 37795 the star was fainter than 15.2m, the approximate
plate limit, and it returned to this magnitude within a period of 
between one and two months after outburst. That the star is a nova is
concluded from the shape of the light curve and the fact that it did
not reappear on the Nantucket plates covering JD 36000 to the present,
nor on Harvard patrol plates of the RB-RH series between JD 26000 and
33000, which reach an average limiting magnitude of 14.5. Some 700
plates were examined. About 70 scattered Harvard A plates from
JD 20000 to 30000 showed no object as bright as 15.0m. *

                     [FIGURE 1]

    Photographic magnitudes for the brighter points were estimated
using the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory Star Catalog magnitudes 
of surrounding stars corrected from visual to photographic. For
the fainter points a nearby Harvard sequence was used. The approximate 
position, interpolated from the Smithsonian Catalog position
of four nearby stars, is 18h24m36s,-24d04.8' (1900).


                            HARRIET DINERSTEIN
                            Maria Mitchell Observatory
                            Nantucket, Massachusetts,
                            U.S.A.


                     [FIGURE 2]

    * ADDENDUM - The Harvard A-plates (24-inch Bruce refractor,
scale 60"/mm in contrast to 248"/mm for the Nantucket plates) show
a faint variable star in the position of the nova. It varies from
15.5 to 17.0. This star is also weakly visible on a few plates of
the Harvard B and MF series, but there are too few positive 
observations to ascertain whether or not the variation is periodic. 
Figure 2 shows the most definitive run of observations, together with
an enlarged diagram showing fainter stars than the insert in Figure 1. 
The star marked A in both diagrams is CoD -24d14410.


                              DORRIT HOFFLEIT