Quasar PKS 1222+21 in outburst
ATel #5921; V. M. Larionov, D. A. Morozova, E. N. Kopatskaya, D. A.Blinov (St. Petersburg University, Russia)
on 26 Feb 2014; 09:52 UT
Credential Certification: V. Larionov (vlar@astro.spbu.ru)
Subjects: Optical, Gamma Ray, AGN, Blazar, Quasar
We perform optical photometric and polarimetric monitoring of flat spectrum radio quasar (FSRQ) PKS 1222+21 (4C 21.35, z=0.432) using 16" LX-200 telescope (St.Petersburg, Russia) and 70-cm AZT-8 (Crimea, Ukraine). During last month this quasar displays prominent activity. In the nights of 2014 February 24 and 25 it reached a level of R=13.86 and 13.80, correspondingly. These values can be compared to the quiescence level of R~15.7 recorded in 2012-2013. Our preliminary optical light curve is given here: http://lacerta.astro.spbu.ru/lc/pks1222R.png . Optical fractional polarization during the outburst is rather modest, on the level 2-5%. We notice that our analysis of the publicly available Fermi LAT data also shows enhanced activity in gamma-rays, see http://lacerta.astro.spbu.ru/lc_gamma/pks1222.png . Our observations are made in the frames of GASP-WEBT collaboration.