A fast optical outburst of the quasar CTA102
ATel #9676; Svetlana Jorstad(BU, Boston, MA, USA; St. Petesburg Univ., St. Petersburg, Russia), Valeri Larionov, Anna Mokrushina (St. Petersburg Univ.)
on 27 Oct 2016; 09:48 UT
Credential Certification: Svetlana Jorstad (jorstad@bu.edu)
The quasar CTA102 is being in an active state at gamma-ray and optical wavelengths since 2015, with prominent gamma-ray and optical outbursts observed in the beginning of 2016 (see www.bu.edu/blazars/VLBA_GLAST/cta102.html). We report a new very fast and strong optical outburst of the quasar observed on October 26/27, 2016. According to observations at the Perkins telescope of Lowell Obs.(Flagstaff, AZ) and AZT-8 of Crimea Astrophysical Obs. (Crimea) the quasar brightened in R band by ~1mag along with an increase of the degree of optical polarization by a factor of ~2 within 24hrs:
on RJD 57687.2315 R ~14.879 P= 5.93+- 0.58% , and EVPA=124.43+- 2.8deg; on RJD 57687.7305 R~ 14.821 P= 6.10+- 0.13%, and EVPA= 134.87+- 0.61deg; on RJD 57688.6406 R~13.946, P= 15.37+- 0.13%, and EVPA=122.60+-0.25deg. Larionov et al. (2016, MNRAS, 461, 3047) have predicted that CTA102 enters into a new high state of activity in 2016.
Optical light curve of CTA102
