Recurrent Nova M31N 2008-12a: Swift UVOT detection of the 2020 eruption
ATel #14142; M. J. Darnley (LJMU), K. L. Page (Leicester) on behalf of the 12a Collaboration
on 2 Nov 2020; 22:04 UT
Credential Certification: Matt Darnley (M.J.Darnley@ljmu.ac.uk)
Subjects: Ultra-Violet, Nova, Transient
The 2020 eruption of the annual recurrent nova M31N 2008-12a was reported in ATels #14130, #14131, also see the notes in ATel #14138. Subsequent observations have also been reported in ATel #14140 and #14141.
Here we report early photometry of the 2020 eruption collected by the UVOT instrument on board the
The Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory. A pair snapshots were collected on 2020 Oct 31 and Nov 01, each pair totalling approximately 1ks of integration time. The observations were taken through the UVW2 filter and the magnitudes are reported relative to the Vega system, all times are in UTC:
2020-10-31T20:32:53 - 20:42:55: 17.49 +/- 0.07
2020-10-31T20:56:07 - 21:01:51: 17.42 +/- 0.08
2020-11-01T22:02:49 - 22:12:55: 18.46 +/- 0.11
2020-11-01T22:37:25 - 22:43:20: 18.33 +/- 0.13
In neither the Halloween nor the Nov 01 observations were any X-rays detected by the XRT instrument. The upper limits were 8.8e-3 counts/sec and 8.6e-3 counts/sec, respectively.
So far, the 2020 eruption is behaving in a similar manner to the 'typical' eruptions seen in 2013-2015 and 2017-2019.
