blazar-s5-071671-bright-outburst

Affiliation
British Astronomical Association, Variable Star Section (BAA-VSS)
Sat, 01/17/2015 - 21:39

http://www.aavso.org/blazar-s5-071671-bright-outburst

Currently at mag 12.4.  Could be an interesting target for the Star Analyser

Robin

Affiliation
British Astronomical Association, Variable Star Section (BAA-VSS)
..or perhaps not

Just checked and BL Lac objects characteristically have featureless optical spectra. I was hoping perhaps H beta emission would be visible - redshifted to ~6300A

Robin

Affiliation
British Astronomical Association, Variable Star Section (BAA-VSS)
SA200 spectrum from tonight

I had a quick look at this tonight with the SA200. Stacks of ~50x20sec exposures with the Celestron C11 gave an SNR ~50  but there is not much to see, at this resolution at least. 

http://www.spectro-aras.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1050

There are few spectra of other stars in the same field though so it might be  a good candidate for some high cadence differential spectroscopy looking for short term changes, similar to this study

http://www.threehillsobservatory.co.uk/astro/spectra_42a.htm

Robin