Independent discovery of a bright nova candidate in M31 with the Las Cumbres Observatory
ATel #16263; G. Marrero-Ramallo, H. Akoudad-Ekajouan, C. Araujo-Alvarez, C. Arrizabalaga-Diaz-Caneja, F. Barnes-Sanchez, P. Eguiguren-Arrizabalaga, A. Iglesias-Lopez, G. A. Jaimes-Illanes, P. Jimenez-Sanchez, S. Lamolda-Mir, A. Mang-Roman, P. P. Meni-Gallardo, I. Ruiz-Cejudo (ULL), M. Sanchez-Andujar (ULL and IAC), V. Wienzek (ULL), E. Esparza-Borges, F. Tinaut-Ruano, and I. Perez-Fournon (IAC and ULL)
on 29 Sep 2023; 23:38 UT
Distributed as an Instant Email Notice Novae
Credential Certification: Ismael Perez-Fournon (ipf@iac.es)
Subjects: Optical, Nova, Transient
Referred to by ATel #: 16265
AT 2023ttu is a bright nova candidate discovered by Yuqing Ren and Jingyuan Zhao on UT 2023-09-29 08:36:23 using the 0.61-m Dall-Kirkham Robotic Telescope at the Burke-Gaffney Observatory (BGO) at St. Mary's University (Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada) and a LUM filter at L = 16.4. It was also detected by ATLAS (ATLAS23tik) on UT 2023-09-29 11:27:14 at orange-ATLAS = 16.147 +/- 0.04.
Here, we report a pre-discovery detection of AT 2023ttu with the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope network (LCOGT) DeltaRho 350 telescope, equipped with a QHY600 CMOS camera, at McDonald Observatory on UT 2023-09-29 07:01:35 in a single SDSS g' 180 sec image at g' = 16.26 +/- 0.08 calibrated using the Gaia DR3 synthetic photometry catalog generated from the Gaia BP/RP mean spectra (Gaia Collaboration, 2022).
The nova candidate is located 91".9 West and 69".6 North of the center of M31.
We encourage follow-up observations.
This work makes use of observations from the Las Cumbres Observatory global telescope network and is based on observations made with the Las Cumbres Observatory's education network telescopes that were upgraded through generous support from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. We thank David Bishop for his compilation of extragalactic novae. These observations are part of a course in Astrophysical Techniques of the Master in Astrophysics of the Astrophysics Department of the University of La Laguna and Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain).
Las Cumbres Observatory g'-band image
