The KiloNova Catcher (KNC) project has requested a Target Of Opportunity observation for the southern hemispehere (Gravitational Wave detectors are currently offline so this is not related to a "kilonova" trigger from LIGO/VIRGO (the main "business" of KNC), but could still be very interesting)
An interesting X-ray flare was observed by the newly launched Einstein Probe https://www.mpe.mpg.de/7867826/EinsteinProbe and floowed up by observations of by Neil Gehrels/SWIFT which conformed a source. Deep (say, 18 mag and fainter) observations in the optical are requested.
https://www.astronomerstelegram.org/?read=16509
https://www.astronomerstelegram.org/?read=16514
If you are already subscribed to the Kilo Nova Catcher project, you will soon be able to upload any images you take of this field to the KNC web backend. If you are not yet registered to the project ... do that :-) Of course you can aslo report findings here.
The coordinates are :
EP240305a, 08:11:41.04 -54:39:07.20
(α,δ= 122.921, -54.652)
CS
HB
Hi HB,
I have added this target to my observing program.
Regards,
Josch
Great!!
HB
Hi HB,
first images show an object at the position of the target with mag. 18.5 in 4x240 sec V Filter images summed up.
Josch
Cool, that looks consistent with what other people got so far.
There is a known galactic GAIA source very close to the SWIFT XRT position but I think it is unclear why it would cause a strong X-ray transient?
CS
HB
An ATEL with results is in preparation, Sarah Antier has informed us that no additional observations are neeeded.
CS
HBE
And here is the ATEL with the results:
https://www.astronomerstelegram.org/?read=16531
Given that the optical target was relatively faint and in the southern sky where fewer amateurs are, I think the response was great!
CS
HBE