New optical nova candidate in M 31
ATel #1609; M. Henze, W. Pietsch, V. Burwitz (Max-Planck-Institut fuer extraterrestrische Physik, MPE), D. Hatzidimitriou, P. Reig, N. Primak, G. Papamastorakis (University of Crete), A. Updike, D. H. Hartmann (Clemson University), P. Milne, G. Williams (University of Arizona)
on 8 Jul 2008; 16:15 UT
Credential Certification: Wolfgang Pietsch (wnp@mpe.mpg.de)
We report the discovery of a possible nova in M 31 on four consecutive
dithered stacked 100s R filter CCD images, obtained on 2008 July 06.04, with
the 1.3m Ritchey Chretien f/7.5 telescope at Skinakas Observatory,
Crete, Greece, using an Andor DZ436-BV CCD Camera (with a Marconi 2k x
2k chip with 13.5��m sq. pixels). The R magnitude of the object was 18.7.
The object is already visible with a magnitude of 18.3 on a 12*60s
stacked R filter CCD image obtained with the robotic 60cm telescope with
an E2V CCD (2kx2k) of the Livermore Optical Transient Imaging System
(Super-LOTIS, located at Steward Observatory, Kitt Peak, Arizona, USA)
on 2008 June 30.45. The position obtained for the nova candidate is RA =
00h42m34.42s, Dec = 41d18'15.7" (J2000, accuracy of 0.3"), which is
1'51" west and 2'06" north of the core of M 31.
All magnitudes given are obtained from a photometric solution using R
magnitudes of the Local Group Survey M 31 catalogue (Massey et al. 2006,
AJ, 131, 2478). No object is visible (limiting R magnitude of ~19.5) at
the position of the nova candidate on Super-LOTIS images of 2008 Feb
01.09 and before. There is no entry in VizieR/CDS for this object and no
minor planet could be found on this position using the MPC/IAU Minor
Planet Checker (see http://scully.harvard.edu/~cgi/CheckMP ).
Furthermore, we report additional photometry for the new nova candidate
in ATEL #1602 using the Skinakas camera as above. We determined an R magnitude
of 18.8 on images taken 2008 July 06.02.
