Spectroscopic classification of M81N 2017-04a
ATel #10276; S. C. Williams (Lancaster), K. Hornoch (Ondrejov), M. Henze (CSIC-IEEC), M. J. Darnley (LJMU), G. Sala, J. Jose, J. Figueira, P. Sin (UPC-IEEC), M. Hernanz (CSIC-IEEC), H. Meusinger (TLS), A. Kaur, D. H. Hartmann (Clemson), A. W. Shafter (SDSU)
on 17 Apr 2017; 20:21 UT
Credential Certification: Steven Williams (scw@astro.ljmu.ac.uk)
Subjects: Optical, Nova, Transient
We obtained a spectrum of M81 nova candidate M81N 2017-04a (PNV J09552544+6905239; ATel #10254) using the SPRAT spectrograph (Piascik et al. 2014) on the 2-m Liverpool Telescope (LT) on 2017 Apr 12.91 UT. The spectrum shows strong Hα emission, and we measure the FWHM of the Hα line to be 2400±100 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 2017-04a is a nova eruption in M81 and we classify it as a member of the Fe II spectroscopic class.
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.
