Possible Classical Nova OGLE-2012-NOVA-002 towards or in the SMC

ATel #4483; L. Wyrzykowski, A. Udalski, S. Kozlowski (Warsaw University Astronomical Observatory, Poland), on behalf of the OGLE team
on 15 Oct 2012; 01:00 UT
Distributed as an Instant Email Notice Novae
Credential Certification: Lukasz Wyrzykowski (wyrzykow@ast.cam.ac.uk)

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We report on a discovery of a possible classical nova OGLE-2012-NOVA-002, found towards the Small Magellanic Cloud in the course of the OGLE-IV search for transients, carried out by the Warsaw 1.3 Telescope in the Las Campanas Observatory.

The Nova is located at Ra,Dec (J2000.0) = 0:32:55.06, -74:20:19.7. There is no detection of the progenitor on the template image, so it must have been fainter than I>21.3 mag. The outburst occurred anytime between 24th Feb 2012 and 5th June 2012, the last day of the previous and the first day of the current OGLE-IV SMC observing seasons, respectively. On the frame from the 5th June 2012 the Nova had already I=~11 mag.

The Nova was discovered on the Oct 11th 2012 at the beginning of the operation of the new transient detection system, at 16.5 mag in the I-band and declining steadily with t2~40d and t3~75d over past 120 days. The galactic coordinates of the Nova are (l,b)= (304.6, -42.7) making it one of very few Novae detected far from the Galactic Plane, or a candidate for a Nova from the SMC, if we assume maximum brightness of about 12 mag and absolute magnitude of -7 mag for slow Novae.

Photometric and spectroscopic follow-up is strongly encouraged.

Finding charts and light curve are available here.