GCN Circular 25376
Subject
LIGO/Virgo S190814bv: no candidates from optical imaging of selected galaxies at the NOT
Date
2019-08-17T00:32:54Z (5 years ago)
From
Daniele B Malesani at DTU Space <malesani@space.dtu.dk>
Kasper E. Heintz (Univ. Iceland), Daniele B. Malesani (DTU Space),
Giorgos Leloudas (DTU Space), Darach J. Watson (DAWN/NBI), Jens Hjorth
(DARK/NBI), Silvia Piranomonte (INAF/OAR), Nicholas E. Jannsen (NOT),
report on behalf of a larger collaboration:
We observed the position of the 10 galaxies listed below, using the
Nordic Optical Telescope equipped with the ALFOSC instrument. These
targets were selected from the list of most probable host galaxies
generated by the HOGWARTS code (https://gwtool.watchertelescope.ie/),
consistent with the latest available 90% probability region of S190814bv
(LIGO Scientific Collaboration and Virgo Collaboration, GCN 25333).
Each galaxy was observed for 5 minutes using the SDSS i filter.
Observations started around 2019 August 16.15 UT (1.27 days after the GW
event) and lasted about 1.5 hr. Conditions were unfortunately affected
by the nearby bright Moon and the poor seeing (1.6-2.5") leading to
shallower than expected images.
Visual inspection of the galaxies does not reveal any new candidate
compared to the deeper archival images from the Pan-STARRS survey. The
typical limiting magnitude is i ~ 19.5 AB (3 sigma), but we caution that
the actual limit is shallower at locations superimposed on the brightest
parts of the targeted galaxies. This limit corresponds to an absolute
magnitude M_i > -17.5 at a distance of 276 Mpc, which would not have
allowed us to detect an event as bright as AT 2017gfo.
List of targeted fields (RA, Dec, name)
00:47:07.527 -24:22:14.33 ESO474-026
00:48:43.287 -23:33:42.07 IC1587
00:48:21.859 -25:07:36.53
00:49:01.481 -23:48:40.74
00:52:41.582 -25:44:01.87 ESO474-035
00:47:28.948 -25:26:26.36
00:55:13.534 -26:19:16.51
00:46:10.416 -24:39:00.69
00:49:27.554 -26:32:17.88
00:51:29.863 -24:38:32.98