PW Vul (Nova Vulpeculae 1984 No.1)
The slow nova PW Vul was the first of two galactic classical novae that appeared in the constellation Vulpecula in 1984. M. Wakuda of Japan discovered this nova at photovisual magnitude 9.2 on 1984 July 27.7 UT while it was still brightening. The nova reached a visual maximum of 6.3 mag. on 1984 August 4.1 UT. It then began a gradual decline with strong oscillations of one to two mags (Robb & Scarfe 1995). A full four years after its optical maximum, PW Vul had faded to visual magnitude 15.5.
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| Visual light curve of PW Vul from the AAVSO International Database; April 9, 1984, to January 8, 1990. |
PW Vul has been the subject of a variety of studies, over a wide range of wavelengths. At visual wavelengths, Hacke (1987) detected a variation of low amplitude and short period, which is likely associated with the orbital motion of the presumed underlying binary system. In the infrared region of the spectrum, Gehrz et al. (1988) believe that PW Vul is unusual because it produced very little amounts of dust in its outburst. In the X-ray, PW Vul is only one of a few novae from which X-ray emission has been observed (Ogelman, Krautter, and Beuermann, 1987). More recently, the International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE) satellite has observed PW Vul and those observations have provided data for chemical anaylsis by Schwarz et al. (1997).