NSV 7429

W. Liller, Vina del Mar, Chile, notified the Bureau on May 28 of his discovery of a possible nova of red magnitude 9.0 (on May 27.030 UT) at R.A. = 16h03m03s3, Decl. = -51deg56'23" (equinox 1950.0; +/- 10"); it did not appear on photographs to limiting yellow mag 10.0 during the past two years, nor to red mag 11.5 on Apr. 29. Requests for confirmation by the Bureau gained replies from R. H. McNaught, Siding Spring Observatory, who suggested the identification with NSV 7429 = HV 8827; from D. Baade and J. Krautter, visiting astronomers at the European Southern Observatory, La Silla; and from D. Overbeek, Edenvale, South Africa (via J. Mattei, AAVSO), who estimated mv = 11.4 on May 29.858. NSV 7429 is listed in the New Catalogue of Suspected Variable Stars as ranging from mag 15.0 to [18, with a published position only slightly different from McNaught's measured position (from a U.K. Schmidt Telescope Unit J plate taken 1979 Mar. 22) of R.A. = 16h02m56s02, Decl. = -51P54'57"9 (equinox 1950.0, +/- 1"). A search by McNaught of 10 photographic charts back to 1916 shows its variation from mag 13 to fainter than B = 15.9; on May 29.49, he noted it as clearly red at mv = 10.6. Baade and Krautter report that a 5-min exposure taken May 30 with the cassegrain echelle spectrograph at the ESO 3.6-m telescope and covering the wavelength range 420-510 nm shows the continuum well detected only in the red part of the spectrum; the most prominent features are strong, narrow (35 km/s FWHM) H-gamma and H-beta emission lines. Fe II 492.3-nm also appears in emission. The absorption spectrum is characterized by strong molecular bands as in stars of spectral type M3-M5. The object may be related to the class of symbiotic stars although no traces of emission due to O III 495.9- and 500.7-nm and He II 468.6-nm are seen.