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C.C. Venturini, R.J. Rudy, D.K. Lynch, S. Mazuk (The Aerospace Corporation), R.C. Puetter (Univ. of CA San Diego)
We present near-IR spectrophotometry of the very fast nova Nova Sgr 1999 (V4444 Sgr) taken 125 days after outburst. The emission line spectrum of V4444 Sgr, with features ranging from C I to [Si IX] and [Si VIII], exhibited perhaps the greatest spread of excitation for any single epoch observation of a nova. However, two other novae, Nova Sgr 1992 No. 2 and Nova Aql 1993, had spectra similar to V4444 Sgr between 0.8 and 1.4 um so such manifestations may not be uncommon. Comparison between V4444 Sgr and the two older novae will be discussed in this presentation. The continuum of V4444 Sgr showed a significant rise redward of 1.5 um indicative of thermal emission from dust. The absence of any dust features in the light curve of V4444 Sgr suggests that we may have a relatively unobscured line-of-sight or that some or all of the circumstellar dust was preexisting. The latter would indicate that V4444 Sgr is a recurrent nova.
This work was supported by The Aerospace Corporation's Independent Research and Development program and by the US Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center through the Mission Oriented Investigation and Experimentation program, under contract F4701-00-C-0009. R. C. Puetter acknowledges support from NASA and Pixon LLC. We would also like to thank the telescope operators K. Baker and W. Earthman at Lick Observatory and T. Armstrong and T. Tessensohn for their help in acquiring data.
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The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: Catherine.Venturini@aero.org
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 34
© 2002. The American Astronomical Soceity.