H-alpha detection of seven recent optical novae in M 31

ATel #2964; W. Pietsch, J. Lloyd, M. Henze, V. Burwitz (Max-Planck-Institut fuer extraterrestrische Physik), A. Liakos, D. Hatzidimitriou (Dept. Physics, University of Athens)
on 22 Oct 2010; 12:07 UT
Credential Certification: Wolfgang Pietsch (wnp@mpe.mpg.de)

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We report the detection of seven recent nova candidates in M 31 on two sets of three 300 s dithered stacked CCD images obtained on 2010 Oct 4 with the 1.3m Ritchey Chretien f/7.5 telescope at Skinakas Observatory, Crete, Greece, using an Andor DZ436-BV CCD Camera (with a Marconi 2k x 2k chip with 13.5 microns sq. pixels) and a broad (75 Angstrom wide) H-alpha filter. Only novae M31N 2010-07a and M31N 2010-10a were also detected on four 100 s dithered stacked CCD images obtained on 2010 Oct 5 with the same telescope and camera using a R filter. For the other novae we determined upper limits in the R filter images. We give CBAT name of nova candidate, time of observation (UT), position, filter, and magnitude.

  
M31N       2010-10-          RA         Dec      Filter Mag 

   
2010-03a    4.790     00h42m47.74s  +41d17'01.4"  HA    17.1
  
2010-03a    5.708                                 R    >18.0
  
2010-05a    4.803     00h42m35.91s  +41d16'38.1"  HA    18.5
  
2010-05a    5.713                                 R    >19.2
  
2010-06a    4.790     00h43m07.56s  +41d19'49.0"  HA    17.7
  
2010-06a    5.708                                 R    >20.0
  
2010-06d    4.790     00h42m55.61s  +41d19'26.0"  HA    18.8
  
2010-06d    5.708                                 R    >19.5
  
2010-07a    4.790     00h43m20.11s  +41d21'23.6"  HA    16.4
  
2010-07a    5.708     00h43m20.11s  +41d21'23.5"  R     20.0
  
2010-07b    4.790     00h43m07.48s  +41d17'58.7"  HA    19.2
  
2010-07b    5.708                                 R    >20.0
      
2010-10a    4.790     00h42m45.84s  +41d24'22.2"  HA    19.4
  
2010-10a    5.708     00h42m45.84s  +41d24'22.3"  R     17.6
  

Positions (J2000, accuracy of 0.3") and magnitudes given are obtained from photometric solutions using R magnitudes of the Local Group Survey M 31 catalogue (Massey et al. 2006, AJ, 131, 2478).

Our H-alpha observations show that the outburst of M31N 2010-10a started at least 0.76 d before the discovery of the nova by Nishiyama and Kabashima (see CBET #2483). With the exception of M31N 2010-03a and M31N 2010-07b, the listed candidates have been confirmed as novae in M31 spectroscopically (all of type FeII, see references on http://www.mpe.mpg.de/~m31novae/opt/m31/M31_table.html ). Our detection of H-alpha emission from M31N 2010-03a strongly supports its identification as optical nova in M 31. M31N 2010-07b has already been proposed as M 31 nova well after outburst based on its H-alpha excess emission (Hornoch et al. 2010, CBET #2411).