[Aavso-sid-list] new SGR 0501+4516

[arne]

A new soft gamma-ray repeater was discovered by Swift on August 22;
see GCN 8112, 8113. The BAT position is
    RA(J2000)  =  05h 01m 04s
    Dec(J2000) = +45d 16' 20"
with an error radius of 3arcmin.
A later observation (ATEL 1676) using the XRT X-ray telescope onboard
SWIFT gives a more precise position from the SGR afterglow:
   RA(J2000)  = 05h 01m 6.78s
   Dec(J2000) = +45d 16' 34.0"
with an error radius of 2.6arcsec (90% containment).

it is nicely positioned in the sky,
and has been bursting over a hundred times in the past few days.
One large flare was seen at 11:27:35UT on August 23.
Denis Denisenko (GCN8114) suggests that an optically variable
object at
RA (J2000.0) = 05 01 06.47
Dec (J2000.0) = +45 16 28.0
at about V=17, might be the optical counterpart, but I think the
jury is still out on that one - no other SGR has a bright counterpart.
Still, Jules Halpern monitored the variable (GCN 8129), and found
that it was constant at R=17.16 for the first hour and then
declined monotonically to R=17.35 over the next hour.

Like previous SGRs, this one could have a super-outburst at any
time, and be observable by the SID group.  Right now, it would
be hard to correlate any particular burst with a SID event since
there are so many of them, but keep an eye open and report anything
unusual to this group.  I'll let you know if a giant pulse is
reported.
Arne