Detection of an optical flare from blazar PKS 1424-41
ATel #2613; M. Hauser (LSW Heidelberg), H. Hagen (Sternwarte Hamburg), S. Wagner (LSW Heidelberg) on behalf of the ATOM team
on 12 May 2010; 11:56 UT
Credential Certification: Stefan J. Wagner (swagner@lsw.uni-heidelberg.de)
Subjects: Optical, >GeV, Request for Observations, AGN, Blazar
Recent measurement with the Automatic Telescope for Optical Monitoring
(ATOM), operated by the H.E.S.S. collaboration and located next to the
H.E.S.S. IACT array in Namibia, shows significant optical flaring activity
of the gamma-ray Blazar PKS 1424-418 (RA=14:27:56.3, Dec=-42:06:19.4 (J2000),
z=1.52)).
This gamma-ray blazar (3EG J1429-4217, 1FGL J1428.2-4204) flared at optical
wavelengths (ATEL #2103) and gamma-ray energies (ATEL # 2104) simultaneously in
June/July 2009). Increased gamma-ray activity was reported by the Fermi LAT
team in ATEL # 2583 on April 23, 2010.
The source has a quiescent brightness of 18.8mag (R), exceeded 16.0 mag (R)
since April, 19 - coincident with the GeV flare reported in ATEL # 2583 and
showed a monotonic increase from 16.0 to 14.9 during
May 07 through May 11 (22 UT), exceeding the peak optical brightness of the
strong flare in July 2009. Multi-frequency observations of this outburst are
encouraged.
