Spectroscopic confirmation of M81N 2016-11a (PNV J09555591+6904050) as a classical nova
ATel #9745; S. C. Williams (Lancaster), M. J. Darnley (LJMU), K. Hornoch (Ondrejov), M. Henze (CSIC-IEEC), A. Kaur, D. H. Hartmann (Clemson), G. Sala, J. Jose, J. Figueira (UPC-IEEC), M. Hernanz (CSIC-IEEC), A. W. Shafter (SDSU), H. Meusinger (TLS)
on 11 Nov 2016; 22:24 UT
Credential Certification: Steven Williams (scw@astro.ljmu.ac.uk)
Subjects: Optical, Nova, Transient
We obtained a spectrum of M81 nova candidate M81N 2016-11a (PNV J09555591+6904050; ATel #9737) using the SPRAT spectrograph (Piascik et al. 2014) on the 2-m Liverpool Telescope (LT) on 2016 Nov 10.18 UT. The spectrum shows strong Hα emission, and we measure the FWHM of the Hα line to be ~2900 km/s. We also detect Hβ emission, and emission lines corresponding to the 5018 and 5169 Å lines of the Fe II 42 triplet. This spectrum confirms that M81N 2016-11a is a classical nova eruption in M81 and we classify it as a member of the broad-lined Fe II spectroscopic class (Fe IIb).
The LT (Steele et al. 2004) is a fully robotic 2-m telescope operated on the island of La Palma by Liverpool John Moores University in the Spanish Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos of the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias with financial support from the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council.
