Recent optical observations of flaring blazars: 3C 66A and 4C+01.02
ATel #15590; Anton Strigachev, Rumen Bachev (IA-NAO, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences)
on 5 Sep 2022; 15:26 UT
Credential Certification: Rumen Bachev (bachevr@astro.bas.bg)
Subjects: Optical, AGN, Blazar, Quasar
The blazar 3C 66A has been observed during four nights - the evenings of 1st to 4th of Sept. 2022 with the 130cm telescope of Skinakas Observatory, Crete, Greece. The object was in an unusually low state of brightness: for all four nights (UT Sept. 2.06, 3.07, 4.06 and 5.06) we measured R-band magnitudes between 15.57 and 15.60 (+/-0.01). Such faint values have not been reported by neither Tuorla monitoring program (https://users.utu.fi/kani/1m/3C_66A.html) nor St. Petersburg monitoring program (https://vo.astro.spbu.ru/sites/default/files/optic/3c66aR.png), both of which cover this object for the last almost 20 years. Actually, the reported here R-band magnitudes are almost 0.2mag fainter than the faintest ones from these campaigns.
Following the recent reports (ATel #15588) of enhanced X-ray and gamma activity of the high-redshift flat-spectrum radio quasar 4C+01.02 (PKS 0106+01), z=2.1, we performed optical follow-up observations of this object with the same instrument of Skinakas Observatory. The obtained R-band magnitude (Sept. 5.02) is about 16.50 (+/-0.05), meaning the objects is in a high optical state, taking into account the SMARTS monitoring typical values of about 17th-18th mag. (http://www.astro.yale.edu/smarts/glast/plots/0106+0119.jpg)
Yet it is about 0.3mag fainter from what we have reported in Feb. 2022 (ATel #15220).
All data are preliminary. Further observations are encouraged.
This research was partially supported by the Bulgarian National Science Fund of the Ministry of Education and Science under grants KP-06-H28/3 (2018), KP-06-H38/4 (2019) and KP-06-KITAJ/2 (2020). The Skinakas Observatory is a collaborative project of the University of Crete, the Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas, and the Max-Planck-Institut fur Extraterrestrische Physik.
