Optical bands flaring of the blazar Ton 599 (4C +29.45)

ATel #15875; Tushar Tripathi, P. U. Devanand, Alok C. Gupta, S. Kishore, K. Dogra, Krishna Mohana A., V. Dhiman (Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Science (ARIES), Manora Peak, Nainital 263001, India)
on 29 Jan 2023; 13:01 UT
Credential Certification: Dr. Alok C. Gupta (acgupta30@gmail.com)

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Since January 2023, it has been noticed that the blazar Ton 599 (4C 29.45, 1156+295; RA (2000.0) = 11:59:32.07, DEC (2000.0) = +29:14:42.0) at z = 0.729 is currently displaying flux variations in the complete electromagnetic spectrum e.g. in gamma-rays (ATel #15853; #15859), X-ray (ATel #15854), optical (ATel #15870), and in radio (ATel #15873). Historically the blazar has shown large amplitude variations in optical bands e.g. in U = 17.08 mag to 12.67 mag, B = 18.28 mag to 12.73 mag, V = 17.38 mag to 12.85 mag, R = 18.04 mag to 12.24 mag, and I = 17.03 mag to 11.69 mag (Fan et al. 2006, PASJ, 58, 797). We are monitoring the source in optical bands and the VRI magnitudes obtained by us on January 26, 2023 is listed below. The observations are carried out using our 1.04m Sampurnanand Telescope (ST) of ARIES, Nainital, India. 2459971.305824861 13.7917 0.0026 V 2459971.319481759 13.2771 0.0023 R 2459971.300460729 12.6961 0.0025 I Here the first column represents JD, second column magnitude, third column error and the fourth column optical filter. If we compare the brightness of the source with the historical data, the source seems to be still in the optical pre-outburst state. There is a possibility to detect the source in an even brighter state in coming days. We will try to observe the source in the coming days whenever it is possible.