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Discovery of a nova candidate in M81

ATel #10101; S. C. Williams (Lancaster), K. Hornoch (Ondrejov), H. Kucakova (Charles University), M. Henze (CSIC-IEEC), M. J. Darnley (LJMU), A. Kaur, D. H. Hartmann (Clemson), G. Sala, J. Jose, J. Figueira, P. Sin (UPC-IEEC), M. Hernanz (CSIC-IEEC), A. W. Shafter (SDSU), H. Meusinger (TLS)
on 20 Feb 2017; 13:12 UT
Credential Certification: Steven Williams (scw@astro.ljmu.ac.uk)

Subjects: Optical, Nova, Transient

The M81 nova monitoring collaboration reports the discovery of a new nova candidate in M81. The candidate was discovered at a Hα magnitude of 20.6±0.2 on 2017-02-08.05 UT, with the 2-m Liverpool Telescope. The position is calculated to be RA = 9h55m27.60s, Dec. = +69°03'57.0" (J2000, 1σ error 0.3"). Our photometry is listed below:

 
  Date [UT]   |  Mag  | Err | Filter | Telescope  
2017-02-03.07 | <21   |     | Hα     | LT 
2017-02-08.05 |  20.6 | 0.2 | Hα     | LT 
2017-02-12.99 | <20.2 |     | R      | OND 
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. Our observations use the IO:O optical CCD camera of the LT. The photometry is based on the SDSS DR7 photometry catalogue. The Hα magnitude is defined on the AB system where m = 0 for fλ = 2.53 × 10-9 erg/cm2/s/Å. Through a 90 Å wide filter, this corresponds to a zero point flux of ~2.3 × 10-7 erg/cm2/s. The OND 0.65-m is a reflecting telescope at the Ondrejov observatory operated jointly by the Astronomical Institute of ASCR and the Astronomical Institute of the Charles University of Prague, Czech Republic. It uses a Moravian Instruments G2-3200 CCD camera (with a Kodak KAF-3200ME sensor and standard BVRI photometric filters) mounted at the prime focus. The unfiltered photometry was calibrated against R-band comparison stars from Perelmuter & Racine (1995).