Although we share the opinion of Chochol et al. (1997) that since there are well established techniques allowing one to estimate the errors of the absolute magnitude determination of a nova at maximum as well as those of determination of the interstellar extinction (Livio 1992, 1994, 1996; Della Valle & Livio 1995; Yungelson et al. 1996; Chochol et al. 1993, 1995 and references therein), the analysis based on these methods may not lead to an acceptable nova distance determination for DQ Her stars. Probably the best way how to determine the distance to dusty novae is the use of the nebular expansion parallax method (Chochol et al. 1997).
In future, it would be extremely useful to perform some observational studies of the expanding shell of V705 Cas using high-quality HST data, as in the case of V1974 Cyg (Nova Cygni 1992) earlier.
We are indebted to D.K. Lynch who has kindly provided us with a copy of the paper by him and his collaborators prior to publication. We thank the Director of the Hlohovec Observatory for generous allocation of the observational time while the relevant observer (K.P.) was still a student. It is a pleasure to express our sincerest thanks to all the observers communicating their results via the VSNET network for their diligence and patience during the accumulation of the long-term data. Our thanks belong to Michael Friedjung and Massimo Della Valle for their valuable comments while reading the manuscript. This work has been supported in part through the Slovak Academy of Sciences Grant No. 5016/98.
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