This object, V838 Mon, or Nova Monocerotis 2002, was in the news last month, with new HST images and a paper in Nature. It looked superficially like a nova, but it's got the wrong spectrum. It was wven touted as maybe the brightest star in the galaxy, when it was at peak brightness.

I'm posting this to tell you that I have written a webpage for this object: V838 Mon. I have tabulated some of the reported data, such as position, distance (which is in dipsute), and nature of the progenitor star, with links to other pages, images, and research papers. It will, I hope, be of some interest to anyone who follows variable stars or novae.

Thanks Tim! What a great site! This one is a real mystery. Its interesting that this star had three of these outbursts on about a one month period.

Duh! Obviously, it's Planet X. Since no other explanation is suitable, mine must be the right one.

(But don't put it past Nancy to make exactly that argument, though with even more gloating.)

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Very nice overview. Thanks!

Yeah, I enjoyed it, even though i only just got round to reading it. i feel obliged to put an exclamation make somewhere, because the other replies did too... !!!!!!

Ha! Mines got more!

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