Discovery of optical flickering in a symbiotic star candidate
ATel #13152; Adrian B. Lucy (Columbia), J. L. Sokoloski (Columbia, LSSTC), Gary Walker (AAVSO), N. E. Nunez (ICATE CONICET), C. Wolf (ANU, CAASTRO), G. J. M. Luna (IAFE CONICET, UBA, UNAJ), Rajeev Manick (SAAO, IvS), Michael Richmond, Thanasis Papadimitriou, Libert Monard (AAVSO)
on 1 Oct 2019; 20:31 UT
Credential Certification: Adrian Lucy (lucy@astro.columbia.edu)
Subjects: Optical, Request for Observations, Binary, Cataclysmic Variable, Star, Variables
We report the detection of B band flickering with peak-to-peak amplitudes of up to 0.2 magnitudes in 30 minutes, and variability of up to 0.5 magnitudes between nights, in the symbiotic star candidate GSC 05140-03255 at coordinates 19:05:48.04, -06:05:49.5 (J2000). This B band photometry is available on the AAVSO website (click here). The detection of flickering is robust to the choice of calibration and check stars. We selected GSC 05140-03255 as a candidate symbiotic on the basis of its colors in the SkyMapper Southern Sky Survey DR2 and minutes-timescale u band variability within a SkyMapper filter sequence, reinforced by our subsequent detection of H-alpha emission superimposed on an M6-M7 giant spectrum in optical spectroscopy obtained using SpUpNIC on the South African Astronomical Observatory 1.9-meter telescope. The detection of minutes-timescale optical flickering reported here supports the identification of GSC 05140-03255 as a newly discovered, accretion-powered symbiotic binary star.
More hours-long light curves of GSC 05140-03255 and our other high-priority candidate symbiotics are requested, especially in the B and V bands. Please see AAVSO alert notice 681 (click here).
