Spectroscopic classification of AT2020yky as a nova in M31
ATel #14150; Monika Soraisam (NCSA/UIUC), Kevin McKinnon, Rafael Nunez, Puragra Guhathakurta, Stephanie Figuereo (UCSC), Chien-Hsiu Lee (NOIR Lab), Sarah DeSantis (Steward), Tim Marquez (UCSB), Kareem El-Badry (UCB)
on 5 Nov 2020; 03:07 UT
Credential Certification: Monika Soraisam (soraisam@illinois.edu)
Subjects: Optical, Cataclysmic Variable, Nova
Referred to by ATel #: 14212
We report the spectroscopic observation of AT2020yky/ZTF20acoqrpm (RA 0h42m20.17s, DEC +41d14m28.16s) from the SALVATION project. The source was flagged from the ZTF public alert stream as a transient candidate in M31 by the ANTARES broker (https://antares.noirlab.edu/loci/ANT2020aevgxui) on 2020 Nov 2 UT (see also https://wis-tns.weizmann.ac.il/object/2020yky).
On 2020 Nov 3 UT, we obtained the spectrum of this source with the Kast double spectrograph on the Shane 3 m telescope at Lick Observatory. The spectrum shows Balmer emission lines, with the FWHM of the H-alpha line around 1400 km/s, as well as O I with a P Cygni profile. The source is thus likely a nova in M31.
We thank the staff of Lick Observatory for their help in executing our ToO observation.
