Recent optical activity of the blazar OT 355
ATel #10540; R. Bachev, A. Kurtenkov, Y. Nikolov, B. Spassov, S. Boeva, G. Latev, R. V. Munoz Dimitrova (Institute of Astronomy, BAS, Bulgaria)
on 29 Jun 2017; 09:42 UT
Credential Certification: Rumen Bachev (bachevr@astro.bas.bg)
Subjects: Optical, Blazar
The Flat Spectrum Radio Quasar OT 355 (also known as 7C 173240.70+385949.00, z=0.975) was typically observed to be in the optical between 16th and 21th magnitude (CRTS, http://nesssi.cacr.caltech.edu/catalina/20011332/113321380764100137p.html ). Our recent observations starting June 19th, 2017, showed a rather high state, reaching (perhaps historically highest) 15.1 mag (R-band) on June 25th. The preliminary light curve is available here http://storage.astro.bas.bg/~bachevr/OT355_Atel/OT355.jpg . One sees rapid variations of up to 1 mag for 2 days. In addition, rapid intra-night variations of up to 0.3 mag for several hours have been detected. The telescopes we used were the 60cm reflector of Belogradchik Observatory, Bulgaria, the 200 cm reflector and the 50/70 cm Schmidt camera of Rozhen Observatory, Bulgaria. As the object appears to be still very active, we encourage further (multiwavelength) observations.
