New peak of brightness of BL Lacertae

ATel #14467; Filipp Romanov (amateur astronomer, Russia)
on 17 Mar 2021; 11:56 UT
Credential Certification: Kirill Sokolovsky (kirx@scan.sai.msu.ru)

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I report my latest magnitude measurements of BL Lac with the remote telescope (0.61-m f/6.5 corrected Dall-Kirkham) of Burke-Gaffney Observatory (Saint Mary's University) in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Astrodon V (photometric Johnson V) and R (photometric Cousins R) filters were used for imaging. The following magnitudes were measured relative to nearby stars from the AAVSO star chart:

 
2021-03-09.36752 V = 12.98 +/- 0.05 
2021-03-13.37874 V = 12.24 +/- 0.01 
2021-03-16.34801 V = 12.72 +/- 0.02 
2021-03-16.34986 R = 12.11 +/- 0.02 
2021-03-17.34911 V = 12.91 +/- 0.05 

Dates are indicated in UTC and for the middle of the exposures.

The image (available here) showing the brightest magnitude (since September 2, 2020 when my observations of BL Lac with this telescope started) of the blazar was obtained at JD 2459286.878738 for 60 seconds. The measured V magnitude is just (0.2mag.) above the peak value on 2020-01-19 reported in ATel #14356 and 2020-01-25 (ATel #14350). Other bright magnitudes measured by me since the start of the monitoring on 2020-09-02:

 
2020-10-06.15546 V = 12.63 +/- 0.02 
2020-10-06.16262 R = 12.08 +/- 0.01 
 
2021-01-15.97160 V = 12.66 +/- 0.02 
2021-01-15.97691 R = 12.06 +/- 0.02 
 
2021-01-22.00753 R = 11.99 +/- 0.01 
2021-01-22.01247 V = 12.57 +/- 0.01