Detection of a new large NIR flare of the gamma ray blazar CTA 102 with Palomar Gattini-IR
ATel #13051; K. De (Caltech), M. Hankins (Caltech), M. M. Kasliwal (Caltech), R. M. Lau (ISAS/JAXA), M. Sharma (Columbia), R. Soria (NAOC), A. Moore (ANU), J. Soon (ANU), M. Ashley (UNSW), T. Travouillon (ANU) on behalf of the Palomar Gattini-IR team
on 30 Aug 2019; 00:21 UT
Credential Certification: Kishalay De (kde@astro.caltech.edu)
Subjects: Infra-Red, Gamma Ray, Blazar, Quasar, Transient
We report the detection of a new large NIR flare of the blazar CTA 102 / PKS 2230+114 conincident with the gamma ray source 2FGLJ2232.4+1143 (ATel #11045) and radio source 4C+11.69. The flare was detected as a part of regular survey operations of Palomar Gattini-IR, a wide-field infrared survey telescope which scans the entire northern sky down to 16 AB mag in J band every two nights (Moore and Kasliwal 2019).
The brightening was detected as a transient candidate produced by the real-time data processing system (De et al. in prep) and saved with the name PGIR 19ayd. Forced photometry at the location of the source shows a large ~ 1.1 mag flare that occurred within the last 5 days. We report the magnitudes of the source calibrated to the 2MASS Vega system below.
JD Mag MagErr
2458715.90 14.63 0.15
2458718.85 14.81 0.22
2458723.85 13.69 0.07
Further multi-wavelength observations are encouraged, and this field will continue to be monitored by Palomar Gattini-IR.
