We report the discovery of an optical transient near M31 using unfiltered CCD
images taken on September 22.17 UT (about 16.3 mag) and September
23.21 (about 16.0 mag) using the 0.45m ROTSE-IIIb telescope at the
McDonald Observatory. The object is located at RA = 00h38m54.63s DEC =
+40o27'34.2" (J2000) and was not detected in ROTSE-IIIb data from
September 20.18 UT (limiting mag about 17.6). A finding chart for the
transient can be found at: http://grad40.as.utexas.edu/~quimby/tss/nova6.png