Monitored source T Pyx - recurrent nova

Position: 09:04:41.51 -32:22:47.6 · cameras: TTUQ1b1x1 TTUQ2b1x1 · 0 detections, 33 upper limits

Manual detection threshold: measurements fainter than mag 14.20 are published as upper limits at the measured magnitude, because the photometric aperture is contaminated by light from an unrelated nearby source. Below that threshold a measurement only bounds the target brightness from above; only when the target outshines the contaminant does a measurement count as a detection (status below_threshold in the table below marks the demoted measurements).

Date range: 2026-01-09.35666 .. 2026-04-19.13407 (UTC) · JD 2461049.85666 .. 2461149.63407

Lightcurve - last 30 days

Lightcurve - full time range

Data files: lightcurve.dat (JD mag err camera field) · upperlimits.dat (JD limit_mag camera field) · lightcurve_aavso.txt (AAVSO Extended Format incl. fainter-than records)

Why these photometric measurements are not very precise

Photometric measurements obtained with a wide-field camera are not very precise, for a number of reasons:

Bad plate solution: errors in the astrometric calibration result in misplacement of the photometric aperture. This may create outlier measurements.
Undersampled PSF: star images occupy only a few pixels, so any uncorrected pixel-to-pixel and intra-pixel sensitivity variations affect the measurements more than they would for well-sampled telescopic images in which each star is spread across many pixels.
Low observing altitude: the fields are often imaged only 15-20 degrees above the horizon. This is a deliberate trade-off for an all-sky transient search, as the sky area at low elevation is far larger than the area near the zenith, but it is bad for photometric accuracy. An airmass-dependent magnitude zero-point correction is applied, but it is not perfect.
Color-dependent (second-order) extinction: a star's brightness measured relative to the comparison stars in the field is elevation-dependent if the star's color differs from the average color of the comparison stars.
Blending with nearby stars in crowded fields affects the measurements differently depending on the aperture size, which is adjusted for each image individually based on the seeing and focus quality.
Position-dependent PSF: the same star may fall closer to the image center in one field and farther from it in another, so a different fraction of its PSF is covered by the aperture even when the same aperture is used to measure both images. Field-to-field and camera-to-camera calibration is therefore an issue, and its magnitude differs from source to source.
Chromatic aberration: many wide-field lenses suffer from it, leaving extremely red stars out of focus while the focus is optimal for average-colored stars.
Clouds, if present, dramatically degrade the quality of the photometry across the entire image.

In practice, expect a photometric uncertainty of ~0.1 mag, or somewhat better in favorable conditions.

The intended use of these data is a quick check of the current state of a source (flaring or quiescent) - not precise photometry.

The photometric measurements are performed without a filter; the zero-point of the instrumental magnitude scale is set by the V magnitudes of the field stars. You are welcome to use these data in any way you see fit, providing a link to this page as the origin of the data.

Photometry table (newest measurements first)

Date (UTC) JD(UTC) mag err status camera image 2026-04-19.13407 2461149.63406794 14.7654 99.0000 upperlimit TTUQ2b1x1 wcs_fd_Pyx-02-Q2b1x1_2026-04-18_22-12-53_20.00sec_-5.00C_LIGHT_0393.fits 2026-04-16.13330 2461146.63329824 14.9136 99.0000 upperlimit TTUQ2b1x1 wcs_fd_Pyx-02-Q2b1x1_2026-04-15_22-11-46_20.00sec_-5.00C_LIGHT_0078.fits 2026-04-16.13266 2461146.63266470 14.8790 99.0000 upperlimit TTUQ2b1x1 wcs_fd_Pyx-02-Q2b1x1_2026-04-15_22-10-52_20.00sec_-5.00C_LIGHT_0077.fits 2026-04-09.14422 2461139.64421522 14.7553 99.0000 upperlimit TTUQ2b1x1 wcs_fd_Pyx-02-Q2b1x1_2026-04-08_22-27-30_20.00sec_-4.90C_LIGHT_0095.fits 2026-04-09.14358 2461139.64358051 14.7498 99.0000 upperlimit TTUQ2b1x1 wcs_fd_Pyx-02-Q2b1x1_2026-04-08_22-26-35_20.00sec_-4.90C_LIGHT_0094.fits 2026-04-06.14422 2461136.64421723 14.8937 99.0000 upperlimit TTUQ2b1x1 wcs_fd_Pyx-02-Q2b1x1_2026-04-05_22-27-30_20.00sec_-4.90C_LIGHT_0077.fits 2026-04-06.14365 2461136.64365175 14.9208 99.0000 upperlimit TTUQ2b1x1 wcs_fd_Pyx-02-Q2b1x1_2026-04-05_22-26-41_20.00sec_-4.90C_LIGHT_0076.fits 2026-03-29.14486 2461128.64486295 14.2717 99.0000 upperlimit TTUQ2b1x1 wcs_fd_Pyx-02-Q2b1x1_2026-03-28_22-28-26_20.00sec_-15.00C_LIGHT_0098.fits 2026-03-29.14427 2461128.64427316 14.2561 99.0000 upperlimit TTUQ2b1x1 wcs_fd_Pyx-02-Q2b1x1_2026-03-28_22-27-35_20.00sec_-14.90C_LIGHT_0097.fits 2026-03-27.14725 2461126.64724551 14.4299 99.0000 upperlimit TTUQ2b1x1 wcs_fd_Pyx-02-Q2b1x1_2026-03-26_22-31-52_20.00sec_-10.00C_LIGHT_0093.fits 2026-03-27.14463 2461126.64463483 14.2659 99.0000 upperlimit TTUQ2b1x1 wcs_fd_Pyx-02-Q2b1x1_2026-03-26_22-28-06_20.00sec_-10.00C_LIGHT_0092.fits 2026-03-26.12954 2461125.62954145 14.3567 99.0000 upperlimit TTUQ2b1x1 wcs_fd_Pyx-02-Q2b1x1_2026-03-25_22-06-22_20.00sec_-10.00C_LIGHT_0317.fits 2026-03-26.12900 2461125.62900057 14.3498 99.0000 upperlimit TTUQ2b1x1 wcs_fd_Pyx-02-Q2b1x1_2026-03-25_22-05-35_20.00sec_-10.00C_LIGHT_0316.fits 2026-03-22.19119 2461121.69118697 14.9680 99.0000 upperlimit TTUQ2b1x1 wcs_fd_Pyx-02-Q2b1x1_2026-03-21_23-35-08_20.00sec_-15.00C_LIGHT_0049.fits 2026-03-22.19058 2461121.69057841 14.9763 99.0000 upperlimit TTUQ2b1x1 wcs_fd_Pyx-02-Q2b1x1_2026-03-21_23-34-15_20.00sec_-15.00C_LIGHT_0048.fits 2026-03-21.15387 2461120.65386777 14.7694 99.0000 upperlimit TTUQ2b1x1 wcs_fd_Pyx-02-Q2b1x1_2026-03-20_22-41-24_20.00sec_-15.00C_LIGHT_0116.fits 2026-03-21.15334 2461120.65334087 14.7910 99.0000 upperlimit TTUQ2b1x1 wcs_fd_Pyx-02-Q2b1x1_2026-03-20_22-40-38_20.00sec_-14.90C_LIGHT_0115.fits 2026-02-27.21075 2461098.71075302 14.4653 99.0000 upperlimit TTUQ2b1x1 wcs_fd_Pyx-02-Q2b1x1_2026-02-26_23-03-19_20.00sec_-15.00C_LIGHT_0041.fits 2026-02-27.21026 2461098.71025672 14.4411 99.0000 upperlimit TTUQ2b1x1 wcs_fd_Pyx-02-Q2b1x1_2026-02-26_23-02-36_20.00sec_-14.90C_LIGHT_0040.fits 2026-02-22.19807 2461093.69807112 14.5510 99.0000 upperlimit TTUQ2b1x1 wcs_fd_Pyx-02-Q2b1x1_2026-02-21_22-45-03_20.00sec_-14.90C_LIGHT_0124.fits 2026-02-22.19757 2461093.69756784 14.6071 99.0000 upperlimit TTUQ2b1x1 wcs_fd_Pyx-02-Q2b1x1_2026-02-21_22-44-19_20.00sec_-15.00C_LIGHT_0123.fits 2026-02-22.17077 2461093.67077113 14.6608 99.0000 upperlimit TTUQ1b1x1 wcs_fd_Pyx-02-Q1b1x1_2026-02-21_22-05-44_20.00sec_-14.90C_LIGHT_0130.fits 2026-02-22.16994 2461093.66994439 14.6704 99.0000 upperlimit TTUQ1b1x1 wcs_fd_Pyx-02-Q1b1x1_2026-02-21_22-04-33_20.00sec_-14.90C_LIGHT_0129.fits 2026-02-12.18609 2461083.68609096 14.6613 99.0000 upperlimit TTUQ1b1x1 wcs_fd_Pyx-02-Q1b1x1_2026-02-11_22-27-48_20.00sec_-15.00C_LIGHT_0156.fits 2026-02-12.18564 2461083.68563560 14.6858 99.0000 upperlimit TTUQ1b1x1 wcs_fd_Pyx-02-Q1b1x1_2026-02-11_22-27-08_20.00sec_-14.90C_LIGHT_0155.fits 2026-02-11.20802 2461082.70802231 14.6816 99.0000 upperlimit TTUQ1b1x1 wcs_fd_Pyx-02-Q1b1x1_2026-02-10_22-59-23_20.00sec_-15.00C_LIGHT_0168.fits 2026-02-11.20736 2461082.70736433 14.6669 99.0000 upperlimit TTUQ1b1x1 wcs_fd_Pyx-02-Q1b1x1_2026-02-10_22-58-26_20.00sec_-15.00C_LIGHT_0167.fits 2026-01-21.24636 2461061.74635965 14.6102 99.0000 upperlimit TTUQ1b1x1 wcs_fd_Pyx-02-Q1b1x1_2026-01-20_23-54-35_20.00sec_-15.00C_LIGHT_0274.fits 2026-01-21.24554 2461061.74554441 14.6185 99.0000 upperlimit TTUQ1b1x1 wcs_fd_Pyx-02-Q1b1x1_2026-01-20_23-53-25_20.00sec_-15.00C_LIGHT_0273.fits 2026-01-18.24079 2461058.74078767 14.4817 99.0000 upperlimit TTUQ1b1x1 wcs_fd_Pyx-02-Q1b1x1_2026-01-17_23-46-34_20.00sec_-14.90C_LIGHT_0234.fits 2026-01-18.24022 2461058.74021918 14.4715 99.0000 upperlimit TTUQ1b1x1 wcs_fd_Pyx-02-Q1b1x1_2026-01-17_23-45-44_20.00sec_-15.00C_LIGHT_0233.fits 2026-01-09.35724 2461049.85724322 14.8602 99.0000 upperlimit TTUQ1b1x1 wcs_fd_Pyx-02-Q1b1x1_2026-01-09_02-34-15_20.00sec_-15.00C_LIGHT_0011.fits 2026-01-09.35666 2461049.85665904 14.8554 99.0000 upperlimit TTUQ1b1x1 wcs_fd_Pyx-02-Q1b1x1_2026-01-09_02-33-25_20.00sec_-14.90C_LIGHT_0010.fits