Optical Imaging of Nova Shells and the Maximum Magnitude–Rate of Decline Relationship

An optical imaging study of 30 recent novae has been undertaken using both ground-based and space-based observations. Resolved shells have been detected around nine objects in the ground-based data, while another four objects have shells detected by Hubble Space Telescope observations; for RW UMi, we fail to detect a shell that was observed 5 years earlier. Images in Hα, and when appropriate [O III] λ5007, are shown, and finding charts for novae without shells are given if no published chart is available. Expansion parallaxes for all systems with shells are derived, and absolute magnitudes for a total of 28 objects are presented, along with a discussion of the maximum magnitude–rate of decline relation. We find that separate linear fits for fast and slow novae may be a better representation of the data than a single, global fit. At minimum, most novae have similar magnitudes as those of dwarf novae at maximum and nova-like stars.