IGR J17497-2821: further observations with Swift and INTEGRAL

ATel #889; Roland Walter, Dominique Eckert, Ingo Kreykenbohm, Piotr Lubinski, Stephane Paltani, Nicolas Produit (INTEGRAL Science Dat Centre, Geneva Observatory, Switzerland), Juan Zurita (CEA, Saclay, France)
on 20 Sep 2006; 13:18 UT
Distributed as an Instant Email Notice Request For Observations
Credential Certification: Roland Walter (Roland.Walter@obs.unige.ch)

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IGR J17497-2821 (ATel #885) was further observed by INTEGRAL and SWIFT. The source is detected up to 200 keV by INTEGRAL. The ISGRI & JEM-X combined spectrum can be well represented by a powerlaw (index= 1.96+/-0.05) with a low absorption column density (NH<3.5 E22 /cm2) consistent with the galactic value.

The source flux increased from 25mCrab to 100mCrab within 2 days with no significant change of spectral index. The current 2-10 keV flux is 8E-10 erg/s/cm2.

We obtained a SWIFT TOO observation. The source was observed for 25 minutes starting at 2006-09-19 15:52 (UTC). From the XRT observation, a refined position has been obtained: RA=17:49:37 DEC=-28:21:28 (J2000), with an error of 5 arcsec.

The 2MASS catalogue contains two sources in the SWIFT error circle: 2MASS J17493780-2821181 and 2MASS J17493774-2821173.

The hard X-ray source spectrum and lightcurve share some similarity with X-ray Nova. If this is indeed the case we may expect a new bright infrared source in the error circle. The SWIFT UVOT camera did not detect any new source in the error circle, but reddening is such that this is not conclusive.

Follow-up imaging observations at infrared wavelengths are strongly encouraged.