Optical activity of the flaring gamma-ray blazar PKS 0458-02
ATel #4402; Tapio Pursimo (Nordic Optical Telescope), Roopesh Ojha (NASA/GSFC) and Fatemeh Kiaeerad (Nordic Optical Telescope)
on 20 Sep 2012; 15:27 UT
Credential Certification: Roopesh Ojha (Roopesh.Ojha@gmail.com)
Subjects: Optical, Gamma Ray, >GeV, AGN, Blazar, Quasar
We report optical photometry of the high redshift (z=2.286
Strittmatter et al. 1974, ApJ, 190, 509) flat spectrum radio quasar
PKS 0458-02 obtained with the 2.56m Nordic Optical Telescope in La
Palma. This superluminal FSRQ (apparent speed of 16.51c; Lister et
al. 2009, AJ, 138,1874), is also known as 2FGL J0501.2-0155 (Nolan et
al. 2012, ApJS, 199, 31) and was reported to be 30 times brighter than
its average daily Fermi/LAT (E > 100 MeV) flux on 17 September
(Atel#4396).
Nearly simultaneous observations were taken with B, R and i-filters on
2012 September 20 UT 05:32. The photometry was calibrated against
eight nearby field stars using GSC2.3 F and N-magnitudes as
reference. The results are:
B=18.5
R=17.3
i=16.6
As a comparison GSC2.3 (Lasker et al. 2008, AJ, 136, 735) reports
B=19.3, F=19.06, and N=18.12, indicating a brightening
of about 0.8, 1.7 and 1.5 magnitudes respectively.
We encourage further multi-wavelength coverage. We will continue to
monitor this source and report future developments using this and
other platforms.