Spectroscopic classification and additional photometry of classical nova M81N 2016-10b
ATel #9653; S. C. Williams (Lancaster), K. Hornoch (Ondrejov), M. J. Darnley (LJMU), M. Henze (CSIC-IEEC), A. Kaur, D. H. Hartmann (Clemson), G. Sala, J. Jose, J. Figueira (UPC-IEEC), M. Hernanz (CSIC-IEEC), A. W. Shafter (SDSU), H. Meusinger (TLS), H. Kucakova (Charles University)
on 19 Oct 2016; 21:33 UT
Credential Certification: Steven Williams (scw@astro.ljmu.ac.uk)
Subjects: Optical, Nova, Transient
We obtained a spectrum of M81 nova candidate M81N 2016-10b (ATel #9642) using the SPRAT spectrograph (Piascik et al. 2014) on the 2-m Liverpool Telescope (LT) on 2016 Oct 19.201 UT. The spectrum shows strong Hα emission and we measure the FWHM of the Hα line to be ~2100 km/s. We also detect Hβ, the Fe II 42 triplet, and tentatively Na I (D), all in emission. This spectrum confirms M81N 2016-10b is a classical nova eruption in M81 and we classify it as a member of the Fe II spectroscopic class.
On 2016 Oct 16.962 UT we obtained additional photometric observations with the 0.65-m telescope at Ondrejov, from which we measure the nova to be at an unfiltered magnitude of 20.1±0.2 (calibrated against R-band comparison stars).
The LT (Steele et al. 2004) is a fully robotic 2-m telescope operated on the island of La Palma by Liverpool John Moores University in the Spanish Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos of the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias with financial support from the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council. The 0.65-m is a reflecting telescope at the Ondrejov observatory operated jointly by the Astronomical Institute of ASCR and the Astronomical Institute of the Charles University of Prague, Czech Republic. It uses a Moravian Instruments G2-3200 CCD camera (with a Kodak KAF-3200ME sensor and standard BVRI photometric filters) mounted at the prime focus. Our unfiltered photometry was calibrated against R-band comparison stars from Perelmuter & Rene (1995).
