Variable Star Memorandum
In 1989, Mati Morel set himself the goal of preparing a chart for every new southern nova that came up. These were sent out to a select group of observers, often within 24 hours. They were sent out under the banner name “Variable Star Memorandum”, or VSM for short. The VSMs ran to 236 issues between 1989 and 2014, when he stopped producing them.
This page will act as a historical archive of these publications. A lot of the nova charts are still a useful reference, as they cover every bright nova over a 25-year period. Mati has gone over the whole lot and compiled the official names into a complete index which should help in navigating them. He has divided the 236 VSMs into 5 batches, usually 50 to a batch. The charts record the comparison stars which were used back then, should it be of interest.
While early VSMs were pretty basic and unsophisticated, the quality improved over time!