Independent Discovery of a Probable Nova in M81

ATel #13440; K. Hornoch, H. Kucakova (Ondrejov), S. C. Williams (Turku), G. Sala, J. Jose (UPC-IEEC), B. Stecklum (TLS), M. J. Darnley (LJMU), A. Kaur (PSU), D. H. Hartmann (Clemson), A. W. Shafter (SDSU)
on 2 Feb 2020; 14:26 UT
Credential Certification: Steven Williams (steven.williams@utu.fi)

Tweet

The M81 nova monitoring collaboration reports the independent discovery of a probable nova in M81 on a co-added 3150-s unfiltered CCD frame taken on 2020 Feb. 1.016 UT with the 0.65-m telescope at Ondrejov.

The object was independently discovered and first announced by M. Zhang and X. Gao and designated as PNV J09554842+6907325 = AT 2020bmf. The object was designated by us as M81N 2020-02a and is located at R.A. = 9h55m48s.50, Decl. = +69o07'33".2 (equinox 2000.0), which is 82.0" east and 218.1" north of the center of M81 (see link to discovery image below).

Here we list the observing dates and corresponding photometry:

 
  Date [UT]    |  Mag  | Err  | Filter  | Telescope 
 
2020-01-29.055 | <21.4  |      | C       | OND  
2020-02-01.016 |  20.1  | 0.15 | C       | OND  
2020-02-02.112 |  20.7  | 0.25 | C       | OND  
 

The OND 0.65-m is a reflecting telescope at the Ondrejov observatory operated jointly by the Astronomical Institute of ASCR and the Astronomical Institute of the Charles University of Prague, Czech Republic. It uses a Moravian Instruments G2-3200 CCD camera (with a Kodak KAF-3200ME sensor and standard BVRI photometric filters) mounted at the prime focus. The unfiltered OND photometry was calibrated against R-band comparison stars from Perelmuter & Racine (1995).

Discovery image