QZ Aurigae, also known as Nova Aurigae 1964, was a

nova A nova (plural novae or novas) is a transient astronomical event that causes the sudden appearance of a bright, apparently "new" star (hence the name "nova", which is Latin for "new") that slowly fades over weeks or months. Causes of the dramati ...

which occurred in the constellation Auriga during 1964. It was discovered by

Nicholas Sanduleak Nicholas Sanduleak (Romanian: Nicolae Sanduleac June 22, 1933 in Lackawanna, New York, United States – May 7, 1990) was an American astronomer. Biography Sanduleak's parents were born in Romania. His family moved to Cleveland soon after he w ...

on an objective prism

photographic plate Photographic plates preceded photographic film as a capture medium in photography, and were still used in some communities up until the late 20th century. The light-sensitive emulsion of silver salts was coated on a glass plate, typically thinn ...

taken at the Warner and Swasey Observatory on 4 November 1964. Examination of pre-discovery plates from Sonneberg Observatory showed that the eruption occurred in early February 1964, and it had a photographic magnitude of 6.0 on 14 February 1964. Its brightness declined in images taken after the 14th, suggesting that its peak brightness was above 6.0. It was probably visible to the naked eye for a short time. QZ Aurigae is classified as a "fast nova", because it dropped from peak brightness by three magnitudes in less than 100 days. All novae are binary stars, with a "donor" star orbiting a

white dwarf A white dwarf is a stellar core remnant composed mostly of electron-degenerate matter. A white dwarf is very dense: its mass is comparable to the Sun's, while its volume is comparable to the Earth's. A white dwarf's faint luminosity comes fro ...

. The stars are so close to each other that matter from the donor star is transferred to an

accretion disk An accretion disk is a structure (often a circumstellar disk) formed by diffuse material in orbital motion around a massive central body. The central body is typically a star. Friction, uneven irradiance, magnetohydrodynamic effects, and other fo ...

surrounding the white dwarf. Because the separation between the stars is comparable to the radius of the donor star, novae are often eclipsing binaries, and QZ Aurigae shows such eclipses. The depth of the eclipses, 1.2 magnitudes in blue light, is unusually large, indicating that both the white dwarf and the inner accretion disk surrounding it are fully occulted at mid eclipse. The orbital period is 8.58 hours. Schaeffer used small changes in the orbital period, along with other observational data, to derive a mass of for the white dwarf, and for the donor star as well as a mass transfer rate of per year. The donor star is a red dwarf with a spectral type of K1.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:QZ Aurigae Novae Auriga (constellation) Aurigae, QZ Eclipsing binaries K-type main-sequence stars