Optical brightening of the blazar B2 1156+29
ATel #7474; V. Larionov (St. Petersburg Univ.), N. Efimova (Pulkovo Obs.), S. Savchenko and T. Grishina (St. Petersburg Univ.)
on 5 May 2015; 14:43 UT
Credential Certification: V. Larionov (vlar@astro.spbu.ru)
Subjects: Optical, Gamma Ray, AGN, Blazar
We perform optical photometric and R-band polarimetric monitoring of FSRQ B2 1156+29 = 4C +29.45 = Ton 599 using 70-cm AZT-8 (Crimea, Russia) and two 0.4-m telescopes LX-200 telescopes in the environs of St.Petersburg, partly in the frames of GASP project. Our data show that this blazar entered a new phase of violent optical activity. In the night of 2015-05-02 its brightness reached R=15.1, as compared to R=16.7 in the night 2015-04-11. Our preliminary light curve may be seen at this page . Optical brightening was accompanied with an unprecedented increase of linear polarization, ~40%, as compared to quiescence level of 2-10%. Our preliminary analysis of Fermi gamma-ray flux also shows enhanced activity. We encourage multi-wavelength observations of B2 1156+29.
