PTF detects optical counterpart to Swift/UVOT M31 transient
ATel #3066; Y. Cao (Tsinghua University, China), M. M. Kasliwal & S. R. Kulkarni (Caltech) report on behalf of the Palomar Transient Factory collaboration
on 4 Dec 2010; 06:31 UT
Distributed as an Instant Email Notice Transients
Credential Certification: Mansi Manoj Kasliwal (mansi@astro.caltech.edu)
Subjects: Optical, Ultra-Violet, Nova, Transient
Recently, Pietsch et al. (ATEL#3061) inspected Swift/UVOT observations and reported a transient
in the central region of the Andromeda Galaxy. During the Summer, Fall and Winter seasons, the Andromeda Galaxy is observed once a night by the Palomar Transient Factory (Law et al. 2009, Rau et al. 2009). We report the detection of an optical source at RA (J2000) = 00:42:31.61, DEC(J2000) =+41:09:50.8. Within the astrometric uncertainties of the PTF (0.4") and Swift/UVOT (0.5") positions, the PTF source is the likely optical counterpart of the Swift source (ATEL#3061). The PTF source had a brightness of R = 20.0 +/- 0.3 on UT 2010 Nov 30.20. It was not detected on UT 2010 Nov 27.24 to a 3-sigma limiting magnitude of R > 20.9.