This paper reports on the detection of optical novae in our neighbour galaxy M 31 based on digitized historical Tautenburg Schmidt plates. The accurate positions of the detected novae lead to a much larger database when searching for recurrent novae in M 31. We conducted a systematic search for novae on 306 digitized Tautenburg Schmidt plates covering a time span of 36 years from 1960 to 1996. From the database of both ~3x10^5^ light curves and >~10^6^ detections on only one plate per colour band, nova candidates were efficiently selected by automated algorithms and subsequently individually inspected by eye. We report the detection of 84 nova candidates.

Cone search capability for table J/A+A/477/67/novae (Basic data of the nova candidates })