Extremely Rapid, ~2 mag Brightening of the AGN 4C +40.01
Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2018 7:01 pm
ASASSN-18xx: Discovery of an Unprecedented, Extremely Rapid, ~2 mag Brightening of the AGN 4C +40.01
http://www.astronomerstelegram.org/?read=12106
In ASAS-SN data, 4C +40.01 rapidly brightened to g~15.4 on UT 2018-10-12.19, while it was fainter than g~17.3 just a day before, UT 2018-10-11.17 (see its full ASAS-SN Sky Patrol light curve here). Such high brightness is unprecedented for this object, which is classified on NED as "Flat-Spectrum Radio Source" and "Seyfert 1.9".
This transient has been named "ASASSN-18xx" and has been posted to TNS (https://wis-tns.weizmann.ac.il/object/2018hhc) ( In general, such behavior is very rarely seen for AGN or quasars (e.g, ATel #11110, #12082), so rapid multi-wavelength follow-up observations are strongly encouraged.
We would like to thank Las Cumbres Observatory and its staff for their continued support of ASAS-SN. ASAS-SN is funded in part by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation through grant GBMF5490 to the Ohio State University, NSF grant AST-1515927, the Mt. Cuba Astronomical Foundation, the Center for Cosmology and AstroParticle Physics (CCAPP) at OSU, the Chinese Academy of Sciences South America Center for Astronomy (CASSACA), and the Villum Fonden (Denmark).
http://www.astronomerstelegram.org/?read=12106
In ASAS-SN data, 4C +40.01 rapidly brightened to g~15.4 on UT 2018-10-12.19, while it was fainter than g~17.3 just a day before, UT 2018-10-11.17 (see its full ASAS-SN Sky Patrol light curve here). Such high brightness is unprecedented for this object, which is classified on NED as "Flat-Spectrum Radio Source" and "Seyfert 1.9".
This transient has been named "ASASSN-18xx" and has been posted to TNS (https://wis-tns.weizmann.ac.il/object/2018hhc) ( In general, such behavior is very rarely seen for AGN or quasars (e.g, ATel #11110, #12082), so rapid multi-wavelength follow-up observations are strongly encouraged.
We would like to thank Las Cumbres Observatory and its staff for their continued support of ASAS-SN. ASAS-SN is funded in part by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation through grant GBMF5490 to the Ohio State University, NSF grant AST-1515927, the Mt. Cuba Astronomical Foundation, the Center for Cosmology and AstroParticle Physics (CCAPP) at OSU, the Chinese Academy of Sciences South America Center for Astronomy (CASSACA), and the Villum Fonden (Denmark).