Optical follow-up of BZQ J0447-0322
ATel #7202; Roberto Nesci (INAF/IAPS)
on 11 Mar 2015; 09:14 UT
Credential Certification: Roberto Nesci (Roberto.Nesci@iaps.inaf.it)
Subjects: Optical, Blazar
Referred to by ATel #: 7203
Following the detection of enhanced Gamma-ray emission from the blazar BZU J0447-0322 by the AGILE satellite (#ATel 7193) I observed the source on 2015-03-10.83 with the 30cm F/10 telescope of the Foligno Observatory (IAU K56) in the V band. Comparison stars were taken from the UCAC4 catalog and aperture photometry was made with IRAF/apphot.
The blazar was detected at V=15.88 +/-0.06. The last reported optical observation in the literature is V=16.53 (and B-V=0.4) measured with SWIFT/UVOT (Nesci et al. 2007, AJ 133, 965) when the source was at the minimum flux level of its historic light curve.
The overall Spectral Energy Distribution, built with the on-line tool available from the ASI/ASDC, shows that this blazar is a High Frequency Peaked source, with the peak around 1.3E16 Hz.
Further observations are necessary to understand if the present optical luminosity is due to a flare or is rather due to a long-term increasing trend toward a high state comparable to that reported in the 1960's (B=15.7).
