Spectroscopic observation of ZTF21aabifad
ATel #14324; Monika Soraisam (NCSA/UIUC), Kevin McKinnon, Rafael Nunez, Stephanie Figuereo, Puragra Guhathakurta (UCSC), Chien-Hsiu Lee (NOIR Lab), Jenna Samuel (UCD), Jon Rees (Lick Observatory)
on 15 Jan 2021; 18:41 UT
Credential Certification: Monika Soraisam (soraisam@illinois.edu)
Subjects: Optical, Supernovae, Transient
We report the spectroscopic observation of the transient ZTF21aabifad/AT2021tm from the SALVATION project. This source was flagged from the ZTF public alert stream by a filter customized to find transients in M31 on the ANTARES alert-broker (https://antares.noirlab.edu/loci/ANT2021axld4). It is located on the outskirts of M31 (RA 0h40m44.02s, Dec +39d19m5.99s; J2000).
On 2021 Jan 14 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 a blue featureless continuum, while the light curve of the transient exhibits a slow rate of rise (around 0.2 mag/day), which is atypical for other eruptive events such as novae or dwarf-novae. We conclude it is likely a young supernova in a background galaxy.
We thank the staff of Lick Observatory for their help in executing the ToO observation.
