Optical flare of the Quasar 3C279
ATel #10121; Svetlana Jorstad (Boston University, USA), Sergey Savchenko (St. Petersburg Univ., St. Petersburg, Russia)
on 24 Feb 2017; 12:46 UT
Credential Certification: Svetlana Jorstad (jorstad@bu.edu)
Subjects: Optical, Blazar
The quasar 3C279 shows significant activity at optical wavelengths.
According to our observations at the Perkins telescope of Lowell Obs. (Flagstaff, AZ)
on February 23 R band magnitude of the quasar reached 14.088+-0.004 with
the degree of polarization P=8.82+-0.11%, while observations at the AZT-8 telescope
of Crimean Astrophysical Obs. show that the source was more than 1 mag fainter on February 20, R=15.237+-0.005, with P=6.45+0.88%. Tonight, on February 24, the quasar continues to brighten and increase the degree of polarization, R= 13.852+-0.007, P=17.94+-0.15%. Multi-wavelength observations are encouraged.
