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Swift observation of Nova OGLE-2012-NOVA-002

ATel #4500; N. Masetti (INAF/IASF, Bologna), A. Paggi (CfA, Harvard), F. Massaro (Stanford Univ.), P. Parisi (INAF/IAPS, Roma) and R. Angeloni (PUC, Santiago)
on 19 Oct 2012; 16:24 UT
Credential Certification: Nicola Masetti (masetti@iasfbo.inaf.it)

Subjects: Ultra-Violet, X-ray, Nova, Transient

The nova OGLE-2012-NOVA-002 (ATels #4483, #4485, #4487) was observed with the XRT and UVOT instruments onboard the Swift satellite. Observations began on October 18, 2012, at 16:33 UT and lasted about 3800 seconds for both instruments.

The UVOT data, acquired in the UVW2 filter (central wavelength: 1928 Angstroms; Poole et al. 2008, MNRAS, 383, 627), allow a detection of the source at magnitude 14.44 +- 0.04 (Vega system); this indicates that the nova is relatively quite bright in the ultraviolet.

On the contrary, with the XRT pointing we do not detect the source down to a 3-sigma upper limit of 0.005 counts s-1 in the 0.3-10 keV band.
This, assuming a blackbody spectrum with temperature 0.5 keV implies a flux limit of 1.4e-13 erg cm-2 s-1 which, at the distance of the SMC (60.6 kpc; Hilditch et al. 2005, MNRAS, 357, 304), corresponds to a luminosity upper limit of about 6e34 erg s-1 in that band.


We thank Neil Gehrels, Jamie Kennea and the Swift team for having quickly set up and performed the requested Target-of-Opportunity observation.