M31 nova candidate ROTSE3 J004453.6+415305
ATel #1365; F. Yuan, D. Chamarro, M. D. Sisson (U. Mich.), R. Quimby (Caltech), C. Akerlof (U. Mich.) and J. C. Wheeler (U. Texas) on behalf of the ROTSE collaboration
on 23 Jan 2008; 03:30 UT
Credential Certification: Fang Yuan (yuanfang@umich.edu)
Subjects: Optical, Nova, Transient
We report the discovery of a nova candidate ROTSE3 J004453.6+415305 in M31 from
unfiltered CCD images taken by the ROTSE-IIIb telescope at McDonald Observatory, Texas.
The object, located at RA: 00:44:53.56 DEC: 41:53:04.7 (J2000, uncertainty <1"), is
24'17" east and 36'55" north (~10.0 kpc) from the center of M31. It was detected at
~17.6, ~17.3 and ~17.4 mag on Jan 19.11, 21.08 and 22.13 UT respectively in two
overlapping fields. It was not detected to a limiting mag of ~17.8 on Jan. 16. 07 UT. The
object is not well resolved in the ROTSE-III images, but was clearly revealed by
subtracting co-additions of images taken between 2007 Aug. 10 and 2007 Oct. 22 (limiting
magnitude about 19.2 and 19.6 respectively). A finding chart of the transient can be
found at: http://www.rotse.net/rsvp/j004453.6+415305/index.html
