Nova Delphinus 2013 was just an ordinary nova that occurs when the gravitational pull of a white dwarf star in a binary star system steals mass from its companion. The extra mass causes a runaway nuclear fusion reaction and results in a rapid increase in luminosity of the white dwarf star. The degree of brightness increase is on order of 10,000-1,000,000 times.
Tonight I was able to photograph the nova from my yard. It is the brightest star near the center of the photo below. It is shining at about 5th magnitude, which is dimmer than dimmest stars that I can see from my suburban yard.
Although the star appears no different than the surrounding stars, I was able to identify it by comparing it to a star map downloaded from Sky and Telescopes website. Link.....Sky and Telescope Nova Press Release In the photo below I highlighted the star groupings that I compared to the downloaded map, in order to find the nova. My photo shows stars dimmer than the star map does.
|added black lines to show star groups highlighted in my photo|