Discovery of Bright Nova Candidate in M31
ATel #16647; A. Valcheva (University of Sofia, Bulgaria) and A. Kostov (IA and NAO, BAS, Bulgaria), P. Nedialkov (University of Sofia, Bulgaria)
on 11 Jun 2024; 13:58 UT
Credential Certification: Antoniya Valcheva (valcheva@phys.uni-sofia.bg)
Subjects: Optical, Nova, Transient
Referred to by ATel #: 16653
We report the discovery of a bright nova candidate in M31 in our 3x300 sec co-added R-band CCD images taken on 2024 June 10.0206 UT with the 50/70 cm Schmidt telescope at Rozhen NAO, Bulgaria. The object is designated by us as M31N 2024-06a and is located at R.A.=00h41m17s.46, Decl.=+40o57'54".67 (equinox 2000.0), which is 979.3'' west and 1093.9'' south of the center of M31. (Discovery image can be found here).
We have also detected the transient in 5x300 sec co-added R-band images taken on 2024 June 11.0218 UT with the same instrument. R-band magnitudes are shown below:
2024 June 10.0206 UT, R=16.37±0.03 mag, 3x300 sec
2024 June 11.0218 UT, R=17.09±0.03 mag, 5x300 sec
B-band magnitudes are also available:
2024-06-10.0320 UT, B=16.92±0.03 mag, 3x300 sec
2024-06-10.9987 UT, B=17.54±0.05 mag, 3x300 sec
No object is found at the transient's coordinates in the online databases.
The available magnitudes show that the nova candidate has begun to slowly decrease in brightness. Spectroscopic observations are strongly recommended to confirm the object's nature.
This study is financed by the European Union-NextGenerationEU, through the
National Recovery and Resilience Plan of the Republic of Bulgaria, project SUMMIT BG-RRP-2.004-0008-C01.
