The nova was discovered on 9 November 1942 by Bernhard Dawson at La Plata, Argentina, when it had an apparent visual magnitude of about 2.

[6][7] It was independently discovered at 18:00 10 November 1942 (UT) by a 19-year-old Japanese schoolgirl, Kuniko Sofue, who looked at the sky after patching her socks and noticed the nova.

About 14 years later, the shell ejected by the nova event was detected, which allowed the distance to be computed.

[9] The Gaia spacecraft later measured the parallax of the star leading to an accurate distance of 815+15−14 parsecs.

[1][2] The nova outburst can be explained by a white dwarf that is accreting matter from a companion; most likely a low-mass main sequence star.