Spectroscopic confirmation of the 2020 eruption of recurrent nova M31N 1963-09c
ATel #14145; S. C. Williams (Turku), M. J. Darnley (LJMU), M. W. Healy (LJMU), F. J. Murphy-Glaysher (LJMU), C. L. Ransome (LJMU)
on 3 Nov 2020; 23:59 UT
Credential Certification: Steven Williams (steven.williams@utu.fi)
Subjects: Optical, Nova, Transient
We report optical spectroscopy of the transient AT 2020yug, which is spatially coincident with the recurrent nova M31N 1963-09c. The last eruption of M31N 1963-09c was in 2015 (ATel #8233, #8234), and the one before that in 2010 (CBET #2573, ATel #3006), showing a five-year recurrence period. The spectrum was obtained with the SPRAT spectrograph (resolution R ~ 350; Piascik et al. 2014) on the 2-m Liverpool Telescope (Steele et al. 2004) on 2020 Nov 3.
The spectrum is that of a He/N nova, showing extremely broad emission lines from Hα, Hβ, Hγ, He I 4471, 5016 and 5876 Å, N II 5679 Å, and the Bowen blend at ~4650 Å. We measure the FWHM of the Hα line to be ~7000 km/s. This is similar to that measured in our spectrum of the 2015 eruption (ATel #8242).
