Optical follow-up of IceCube-190331A with SARA
ATel #12626; William Keel (Univ Alabama), Marcos Santander (Univ Alabama)
on 3 Apr 2019; 16:31 UT
Credential Certification: William Keel (wkeel@ua.edu)
Subjects: Optical, Neutrinos
To seek any bright optical transient associated with the high-energy neutrino event reported by IceCube in
ATEL #12616, we observed the central 0.5x0.5 degrees of the localization region from 09:13-10:08 UT on April 2, 2019.
A set of 9x300-second exposure in the SDSS i band was obtained with the remotely-operated SARA 0.6m telescope
at Cerro Tololo, Chile, shortly after the region rose, and following into morning twilight. Nine different
pointings were observed with an FLI CCD giving a 10.3-arcminute field of view, with 550-arcsecond offsets in each coordinate
between fields to give some overlap. The intensity scale was set from observations of Landolt standard stars,
transformed to the SDSS i band via the photometric transformations from Jordi et al. (2006 A&A 460, 339). The images
covered the entire range of RA 337.668 +/- 0.242 degrees, declination -20.697 +/- 0.239 degrees.
Comparison with the USNO B1.0 and 2MASS PSC catalogs, Pan-STARRS 1 cutouts, and digitized Palomar Sky Survey images shows no new source brighter than about i=18.5 in the region . The limit is somewhat variable, being brighter (i<18.2) in the central 10x10-arcminute region due to higher airmass and trailing of the images within 19 degrees of the horizon.
