HET optical spectrum of AT 2019wey
ATel #14003; J. Vinko (Konkoly Obs., U Szeged, UT Austin), B. P. Thomas (UT Austin), J. C. Wheeler (UT Austin)
on 9 Sep 2020; 22:33 UT
Credential Certification: Jozsef Vinko (vinko@astro.as.utexas.edu)
Subjects: Optical, Blazar, Cataclysmic Variable, Transient, Variables
We report an optical spectrum (range 364 - 1000 nm) of the transient source
AT 2019wey (ATLAS19bcxp, Gaia20aua, SRGA J043520.9+552226; ATel #13571, #13576, #13921, #13932, #13948, #13957, #13976, #13984, #14000) taken with the 10m Hobby-Eberly Telescope "Low Resolution Spectrograph-2" (LRS2) at McDonald Observatory by Syed Uddin and Steven Janowiecki on 2020-09-03.4 UT.
The new spectrum shows a smooth, strongly reddened continuum (E(B-V) ~ 0.9 mag) and some weak, narrow features identified as NaI D and H Balmer features at z=0, similar to the optical spectroscopic observations reported by Yao et al. (ATel #13932).
The confirmation of the presence of Balmer features at zero redshift, together with the low intrinsic polarization reported by Bouzelou et al. (ATel #14000), disfavors the extragalactic origin of this transient as a BL Lac AGN (Lyapin et al. ATel #13576) and strongly favors the accreting X-ray binary hypothesis (Yao et al. ATel # 13932) within the Milky Way.
We thank the staff at McDonald Observatory for performing this Target-of-Opportunity observation.
