Support ATel At Patreon

[ Previous | Next | ADS ]

Gemini-N / GMOS classification of AT2020dih as a classical nova outburst in Messier 94

ATel #13546; Kishalay De (Caltech), Anna Ho (Caltech), Adam Miller (Northwestern) on behalf of the ZTF collaboration
on 9 Mar 2020; 20:37 UT
Credential Certification: Kishalay De (kde@astro.caltech.edu)

Subjects: Optical, Nova, Transient

Following the detection of the fast transient AT2020dih in ATLAS + ZTF data (see Smartt et al. Astronote 2020-55), as well as a custom GROWTH Marshal filter designed to search for transients in the vicinity of nearby galaxies (De et al. Astronote 2019-124, ATel #13262), we triggered our target of opportunity program on the Gemini North telescope (PI: Miller) for young and fast evolving transients. Observations were taken on UT 2020-03-08 in R400 and B600 gratings, dithered in wavelength to cover chip gaps. The reduced spectrum shows intermediate width (~1000 km/s) emission lines of the Balmer series, Ca II and O I at the redshift of the nearby Messier 94 galaxy. The spectrum and the fast light curve peaking at M = -9 are consistent with a classical nova outburst in M94.

We thank the Gemini staff for scheduling these rapid Target of Opportunity observations. ZTF is a project led by PI S. R. Kulkarni at Caltech (see ATEL #11266), and includes IPAC; WIS, Israel; OKC, Sweden; JSI/UMd, USA; UW,USA; DESY, Germany; NRC, Taiwan; UW Milwaukee, USA and LANL USA. ZTF acknowledges the generous support of the NSF under AST MSIP Grant No 1440341. Alert distribution service provided by DIRAC@UW. Alert filtering is being undertaken by the GROWTH marshal system, supported by NSF PIRE grant 1545949.