Novae in H-alpha

H-alpha Observations of Novae

When a star undergoes a nova explosion, it may outshine 10,000 stars for a period of days or even weeks. However, in the light of hydrogen's H-alpha line, a nova will remain bright for months, or even years! Thus, by observing other galaxies though a 75 A wide H-alpha filter at intermittent intervals (once or twice a year), one can detect large numbers of novae, and learn about stellar population that gives rise to these objects.

Observations of novae in M31 have produced the surprising result that the distribution of novae in that galaxy follows the distribution of bulge stars almost perfectly. Moreover, observations of other nearby galaxies shows that, normalized to galactic infrared (K-band) luminosity, all galaxies produce the same number of novae.

For further information check out our

Publications mostly based on H-alpha observations of novae

Web page by Robin Ciardullo ( rbc@astro.psu.edu )
Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics
Penn State University