A Large very red NIR flare of the Blazar 3C454.3
ATel #11355; L. Carrasco, A. Porras, E. Recillas, G. Escobedo, V. Chavushyan (INAOE, Mexico)
on 25 Feb 2018; 22:55 UT
Credential Certification: LUIS CARRASCO (carrasco@inaoep.mx)
Subjects: Radio, Infra-Red, Gamma Ray, AGN, Blazar
We report on a new NIR flare of the high redshift Blazar 3c454.3 (z=0.859), also known as HB89 2251+158 associated with the gamma-ray source 2FGL2253.9+1609. Our most recent NIR photometry for this source shows that on December 29th,2017 (JD2458116.609456), the object brightness corresponded to H = 12.669 +/- 0.02. While, in a previous observation in this band (MJD2458063) the object had a magnitude H = 13.708 +/- 0.03. This particular flare turned out to be very red. The increment en the J band was only 0.7 mag, while in the H band was 1.0 mag and in the Ks band an increment of 1.45 mag was observed. Hence, the object has increased its luminosity by a factor of about 3.8 in K in this rather short lapse. This behavior is consistent with a fresh injection of relativistic electrons onto a magnetized zone. The source has shown flaring activity in the past (see ATels # 6213 and # 8589) of Our observations are carried out with the 2.1m telescope of the Guillermo Haro Observatory operated by the National Institute for Astrophysics, Optics and Electronics (Mexico), equipped with the instrument CANICA a NIR camera. We strongly encourage further multiwavelength coverage.