Discovery of a faint U Geminorum star on a U.K. Schmidt objective-prism plate

The discovery of 1502 + 09, an emission-line star of magnitude 18.56 + or - 0.1 mag, on a IIIa-J plate obtained in a 60-min exposure using a 44-arcmin low-dispersion objective prism on the 1.2-m UK Schmidt telescope is reported. A finding chart, the objective-prism spectrum, and a 1-nm-resolution 330-610-nm spectrum obtained with the intensified Reticon spectrometer on the 5-m Hale telescope at Palomar Observatory are presented and characterized. The object is classified as a dwarf-nova cataclysmic variable of U Gem type lying at a distance of about 350 pc and about 280 pc above the Galactic plane; i.e., considerably farther than the 150-pc density scale height derived for dwarf novae by Patterson (1984).