Short, Bright Optical/Near-Infrared Flare in PKS 1510-089
ATel #5416; M. Buxton, I. Hasan, E. MacPherson, J. Isler, M. Urry, C. Bailyn, P. Coppi (Yale University)
on 25 Sep 2013; 01:33 UT
Credential Certification: Michelle Buxton (buxton@astro.yale.edu)
Subjects: Infra-Red, Optical, AGN, Black Hole, Blazar
Recently we have monitored the blazar PKS 1510-089 daily using the
ANDICAM instrument on the SMARTS 1.3m telescope in Chile.
Since 11 September 2013 (or soon beforehand) PKS 1510-089 has undergone a
very short but significant flare in optical and near-infrared (OIR) fluxes.
The peak of the flare is comparable, but not as high, as the flare seen in
2009, and it is the highest OIR flux we've observed over the past four
years. The flare is already on the decline and, while it has not yet reached
pre-flare fluxes, we expect it will do so over the next few days.
We observed the following changes in magnitude between JD 2456498 (the date
we last observed pre-flare fluxes) and JD 2456555 (the date of the highest
observed OIR fluxes): delta_B = 1.4, delta_V = 1.6, delta_J = 2.0,
delta_K = 1.4. We note that our K-band data has the most noise of all our
bands. This may explain why the delta_mag in K is less than V or J bands.
Our data and light curves of PKS 1510-089, as well as other blazars we are
monitoring, can be found at: http://www.astro.yale.edu/smarts/glast/home.php#.
