Discovery of four M81 nova candidates
ATel #9975; S. C. Williams (Lancaster), K. Hornoch (Ondrejov), H. Kucakova (Charles University), M. J. Darnley (LJMU), M. Henze (CSIC-IEEC), A. Kaur, D. H. Hartmann (Clemson), G. Sala, J. Jose, J. Figueira, P. Sin (UPC-IEEC), M. Hernanz (CSIC-IEEC), A. W. Shafter (SDSU), H. Meusinger (TLS)
on 19 Jan 2017; 14:49 UT
Credential Certification: Steven Williams (scw@astro.ljmu.ac.uk)
Subjects: Optical, Nova, Transient
The M81 nova monitoring collaboration reports the discovery of four nova candidates in M81. The coordinates (1σ position errors 0.3") of the new transients, along with their magnitudes are listed below:
M81N 2016-11e (RA = 9h55m15.30s, Dec. = +69°05'11.4"):
Date [UT] | Mag | Err | Filter | Telescope
2016-11-21.080 | 20.4 | 0.1 | Hα | LT *
2016-12-07.134 | 20.2 | 0.1 | Hα | LT
M81N 2016-11f (RA = 9h55m28.19s, Dec. = +69°04'09.4"):
Date [UT] | Mag | Err | Filter | Telescope
2016-11-21.080 | 20.2 | 0.2 | Hα | LT *
M81N 2016-12c (RA = 9h55m39.72s, Dec. = +69°04'34.0"):
Date [UT] | Mag | Err | Filter | Telescope
2016-11-15.016 | <21.0 | | C | OND
2016-11-21.080 | <21.0 | | Hα | LT
2016-11-28.132 | 20.0 | 0.5 | C | OND
2016-11-29.105 | 20.3 | 0.5 | C | OND
2016-12-07.134 | 19.6 | 0.1 | Hα | LT *
M81N 2016-12d (RA = 9h55m32.37s, Dec. = +69°03'43.0"):
Date [UT] | Mag | Err | Filter | Telescope
2016-11-21.080 | <20.3 | | Hα | LT
2016-12-07.134 | 19.6 | 0.2 | Hα | LT *
* Discovery observation
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. Our observations use the IO:O optical CCD camera of the LT. The OND 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. The unfiltered OND photometry was calibrated against R-band comparison stars from Perelmuter & Racine (1995). The LT photometry is based on the SDSS DR7 photometry catalogue. The Hα magnitude is defined on the AB system where mHα = 0 for fλ = 2.53 × 10-9 erg/cm2/s/Å. Through a 90 Å wide filter, this corresponds to a zero point flux of ~2.3 × 10-7 erg/cm2/s/Å.
