Blazar S4 0954+65: the new activity epoch

ATel #15633; V. V. Vlasyuk, O. I. Spiridonova, A. S. Moskvitin, O. A. Maslennikova (Special Astrophysical Observatory of the Rus. Ac. Sci.)
on 27 Sep 2022; 08:27 UT
Credential Certification: Alexander Moskvitin (mosk@sao.ru)

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The blazar S4 0954+65 is observing by SAO RAS team on a regular basis in search of possible correlation between its optical and radio activity events. Since January of 2021 we have started commissioning observations with SAO RAS 0.5-m RC500 reflector, manufactured by JSC ASTROSIB (Novosibirsk,Russia). After re-combination of it's optical schema in last April our CCD camera FLI Proline PL16801 realizes 30 arcmin field of view.

After period of impressive activity in last May with record brightness about R~13.1 the blazar had passed into more quiet phase with magnitudes below R~15.0.

Nevertheless, our last observations indicated on beginning of new activity phase --- last night measurements gave R=13.65 for epoch MJD=59849.0 (night September 26/27).

All data were taken under rather mediocre weather condition (seeing between 3 and 4 arcsec and wind near 10 m/sec) and have typical accuracy <0.02 mag. More accurate reduction is necessary. We strongly encourage further multi-wavelength coverage.