The symbiotic star Hen 2-468 detected with Swift/XRT/UVOT during its current outburst
ATel #6880; G. J. M. Luna (IAFE), N. Nunez (UNSJ), J. Sokoloski (U. of Columbia), K. Mukai (GSFC), T. Nelson (U. of Minnesota)
on 6 Jan 2015; 14:38 UT
Credential Certification: Gerardo Juan Manuel Luna (gluna@cfa.harvard.edu)
Subjects: Ultra-Violet, X-ray, Binary, Cataclysmic Variable
The symbiotic star Hen 2-468 is undergoing its second (recorded) outburst as reported by Munari et al. (Atel #6841). We report the detection of Hen 2-468 in X-rays and UV with Swift during a ToO observation taken on 12/26/2014 with 9 ks exposure time. Hen 2-468 was detected with the X-ray telescope at the coordinates alpha=20h 41m 19.97s, delta=+34° 44' 41.2'' within an error radius of 6.6'' (90% confidence) and at alpha=20h 41m 19.021s and delta=+34° 44' 52.60'' with the UVOT/UW2 filter (2'' error radius). In the X-ray band, the source is detected at a 3.7sigma level in the 0.3-10 keV band. The X-ray spectrum is poor in count statistics, a tentative fit with an absorbed, optically thin thermal plasma gives nH < 2e22 cm^-2, a temperature kT > 0.5 keV and unabsorbed flux of ~3e-13 ergs/cm^2/s^1. The UW2 magnitude is 17.305+-0.053. Swift will observe Hen 2-468 again to follow the evolution of the outburst in high energies and we encourage follow up at other wavelengths.
We thank the Swift team for scheduling these ToO observations.
