ZTF Discovery and IRTF/SpeX confirmation of a highly reddened Galactic classical nova ZTF23aagmerr
ATel #16181; K. De (MIT)
on 10 Aug 2023; 18:53 UT
Distributed as an Instant Email Notice Novae
Credential Certification: Kishalay De (kde1@mit.edu)
Subjects: Infra-Red, Optical, Cataclysmic Variable, Nova, Transient
We report the discovery and classification of a highly reddened Galactic nova ZTF23aagmerr in the direction of the Galactic bulge. The transient was identified as part of an ongoing program to identify slowly evolving Galactic plane transients (De et al. 2023, Nature, 617, 55) in the public alert stream of the Zwicky Transient Facility (Bellm et al. 2019; Graham et al. 2019).
ZTF23aagmerr was first detected in the ZTF pipeline on UT 2023-04-19 at a flux of r = 16.44 +/- 0.04 mag, at J2000 coordinates
RA = 17:50:19.46
Dec = -24:30:33.33
corresponding to a Galactic latitude of 1.4 degrees. The source has subsequently faded to r = 18.6 mag on UT 2023-08-07. There is no source at this position in archival PS1 images. The source was not detected in contemporaneous g-band observations to g > 20.5 mag, suggesting that the transient is highly reddened. The integrated extinction along this line of sight is 10.4 mag in V band (Schlafly et al. 2011).
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On UT 2023-08-01, we obtained a NIR spectrum of the source using SpeX (Rayner et al. 2003) on the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility (Program 2023A070; PI: De). Observations were acquired in the SXD mode with a 0.3" slit and a total exposure time of 15 minutes. The reduced spectrum (1.0 - 2.5 microns) shows strong broad emission lines of He I, H I, OI and C I with double peaked line profiles. The FWHM of the line profiles is ~ 1500 km/s. Overall, the features are consistent with a highly reddened Galactic classical nova. The detection of strong C I features in J and K band suggest the classification of the source as a Fe II nova (Banerjee & Ashok 2012).
We thank the IRTF staff for assistance with these observations.
