Strong H-alpha emission detected from M31 nova candidate AT 2024pns
ATel #16721; M. Minev (IA and NAO, BAS, Bulgaria), A. Valcheva (University of Sofia, Bulgaria), Paulo Holvorcem
on 19 Jul 2024; 10:15 UT
Credential Certification: Antoniya Valcheva (valcheva@phys.uni-sofia.bg)
Subjects: Optical, Nova, Transient
We report optical observations of the recent M31 nova candidate AT 2024pns (= GEOTS-Balaji-2024-015) (= PNV J00443542+4109393) discovered by Balaji Kumar ( GEOTS ) on 2024 July 07/15.412 UT. The source was also detected by ( DDOTI/OAN ) on 2024-07-16 07:43:35 UTC and they commented their observations as a brightening of the source (ATel #16713).
Our observations were carried out on 2024 July 18.0074 UT with the 1.5 m telescope at Rozhen NAO, Bulgaria, equipped with C3-61000 CMOS camera, in standard BVR-bands and narrowband H-alpha (FWHM of 3 nm). The magnitudes in BVR-bands and H-alpha were obtained from 3x300 sec and 5x600 sec co-added frames, respectively. The photometric calibration was done using Massey et al. (2007, 2016).
We detected strong emission in H-alpha (see here ) from AT 2024pns. All optical magnitudes are summarized below:
# Date, Filter, Magnitude, Error
2024 July 18.0074 UT, Ha= 16.08 ± 0.04 mag
2024 July 18.0323 UT, R = 16.90 ± 0.01 mag
2024 July 17.9827 UT, B = 17.56 ± 0.01 mag
2024 July 17.9674 UT, V = 17.30 ± 0.01 mag.
The strong H-alpha emission detected from AT 2024pns and its optical properties are consistent with those of novae in M31 close to the optical maximum. Spectroscopic observations are encouraged to confirm that it belongs to M31.
This study is partially 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.
