Nova Cygni 1975 (V1500 Cyg) was outstanding in several respects. It was the most luminous galactic nova ever observed, had the largest outburst amplitude, and had the fastest evolution with time.

The spectra, with dispersion 28 A/mm and in spectral range λλ3560-5055 A, were obtained with the CCS spectrograph on 90 cm reflector at Toruń Observatory by the research group supervised by prof. A. WoszczyK. The CCS spectrograph was equipped with the 3.5 arcsec aperture Richardson’s image slicer and stars with known spectral energy distributions were observed on each night, so we were able to derive absolute energy distributions for the V1500 Cyg spectra. The calibration of the energy scale was performed by comparing synthetic B magnitudes calculated from our spectra with numerous published B photometry of the nova. The first spectra were obtained about 3h later than spectra reported by Boyarchuk (1977) and about 6h earlier than spectra discussed by Duerbeck and Wolf (1977); thus they are among the earliest spectra of the nova available. Simultaneously, the spectra correspond to the earliest state of spectral evolution of a nova ouburst yet observed. The pre-maximum spectral evolution of Nova V1500 Cyg is extremely fast. The spectra (Figures 1 and 2) secured on JD 2442654 are characterized by a very strong continuum and broad blueshifted absorption lines of OII, NII and CII of unusual strengths, as well as the Balmer series and Hel.