Elemental abundances for nova ejecta

The nova outburst is a consequence of the accretion of hydrogen rich material onto a white dwarf in a close binary system and both theory and observations show that the accreting material mixes with core material at some time during the outburst. Abundance determinations of novae ejecta show that the core material is either carbon and oxygen or oxygen, neon, and magnesium. We are in the process of determining the ejecta abundances for a number of recent Galactic and LMC novae with both optical and ultraviolet data. We are also analyzing spectra obtained early in the outburst when the expanding shell is optically thick.