GCN Circular 26491
Subject
LIGO/Virgo S191213g: NOT optical spectroscopy of AT2019wxt (PS19hgw)
Date
2019-12-18T22:17:55Z (5 years ago)
From
Daniele B Malesani at DTU Space <malesani@space.dtu.dk>
L. Izzo (DARK/NBI), D. B. Malesani (DTU Space), K. E. Heintz (Univ.
Iceland), J. Hjorth (DARK/NBI), B. Milvang-Jensen (DAWN/NBI), S. H.
Bruun (DARK/NBI), G. Leloudas (DTU Space), S. Simon-Diaz (IAC; La
Laguna), A. de Burgos (NOT; La Laguna), report on behalf of a larger
collaboration:
We observed the faint transient AT 2019wxt (PS19hgw), spatially and
temporally consistent with the gravitational wave event S191213g (LIGO
and Virgo collaboration, GCN 26402), with the Nordic Optical Telescope
(NOT) equipped with the ALFOSC instrument. A spectrum with 2400 s
exposure was secured starting on 2019 Dec 18 at 19:52 UT (MJD 58835.83),
covering the wavelength range 3200-9600 AA. Photometry yields i = 18.99
+/- 0.02 mag (AB) calibrated against the Pan-STARRS catalog.
Our spectrum reveals a blue, mostly featureless continuum, which can be
fit with a flat spectrum (F_nu propto nu^0). A narrow Halpha emission
line is detected at z = 0.037, consistent with the catalogued value from
NED, which we impute to emission from the underlying host galaxy. Our
results are consistent with the findings of Dutta et al. (GCN 26490).
At the present stage, the classification of this transient is unclear
and we encourage further spectroscopic and photometric follow-up.