Six luminous red novae photometry

They show doublepeaked light curves, with an initial rapid luminosity rise to a blue peak (at -13 to -15mag), which is followed by a longer-duration red peak that sometimes is attenuated, resembling a plateau. The progenitors of three of them (NGC4490-2011OT1, M101-2015OT1, and SNhunt248), likely relatively massive blue to yellow stars, were also observed in a pre-eruptive stage when their luminosity was slowly increasing.

Early spectra obtained during the first peak show a blue continuum with superposed prominent narrow Balmer lines, with P Cygni profiles. Lines of FeII are also clearly observed, mostly in emission. During the second peak, the spectral continuum becomes much redder, H{alpha} is barely detected, and a forest of narrow metal lines is observed in absorption.