COMMISSION 27 OF THE I. A. U.
           INFORMATION BULLETIN ON VARIABLE STARS
                       Number 2852

                                         Konkoly Observatory
                                         Budapest
                                         22 January 1986

                                         HU ISSN 0374 - 0676



                     NOVA SCORPII 1985



   On 24 Sept. 1985, Liller (1985), Vina del Mar, Chile, discovered a nova
in Scorpius (17h53m19.4s ; -31deg49'09" (1950)). The object was of 10.5 mag.
  I started photographing parts of the Milky Way near Baade's windows
in the constellations of Sco and Sgr, to find faint novae in outburst in
July 1981. I worked with the GPO at La Silla (ESO). In July 1981 I photographed
20 fields on Kodak IIaO 160x160 mm plates. The field was 2deg x 2deg. In
the same year I photographed the fields three times and treated the plates
with a blink-comparator. In June 1982 Dr. Duerbeck from Muenster photographed
a part of the fields, and then in August 1985 I observed once more.
  With the Optronics of ESO in Garching I found the pre-nova and could
identify this object on some plates. The field No. 9 in my numeration with
the coordinates of midpoint 17h53m and -31deg :(1985) shows the pre-nova near
the center of the plate. I estimated the following magnitudes:

        Date           Plate No.      mag. of the pre-nova
        23 July 1981   4853 GPO              16
         7 Aug. 1981   4892 GPO              17
        19 June 1982   5684 GPO             (17
        27 June 1982   5705 GPO             (17
        11 Aug. 1985   8649 GPO              16
        17 Aug. 1985   8671 GPO              17.5

On the plate No. 456 of SRC (J) one can easily identify the pre-nova as a
star of 17th mag. The identification chart of the nova is shown in Figure 1.
  I thank the ESO for using the instruments and stay at La Silla and
Garching.



                                RAINER LUKAS
                         Wilhelm-Foerster-Observatory
                         Munsterdamm 90, D-1000 Berlin 41

Reference:
Liller, W., 1985, IAU Circ., No. 4118. [BIBCODE 1985IAUC.4118....1L ]



                             [FIGURE 1]

 Figure 1. Identification chart of the Nova Scorpii 1985. It is
 reproduced from plate No. 8671 GPO