(cba:news) new x-ray transient...

[Joe Patterson]

Dear CBAers,

Today's announcement smells of CBA raw meat.  An AM-Her or at least a CV
identification fits all facts known to date... and a long light curve will
say yay or nay!

joe



------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Astronomer's Telegram                   http://www.astronomerstelegram.org
==============================================================================
ATEL #673							     ATEL #673

Title:		Swift/XRT detection and localization of IGR J01583+6713
Author:	J. A. Kennea, J. L. Racusin, D. N. Burrows, S. Hunsberger,
		J. A. Nousek (PSU) and N. Gehrels (NASA/GSFC)
Queries:	kennea at astro.psu.edu
Posted:	13 Dec 2005;  12:21  UT
Subjects:	X-ray, Transients



At 00:00 UT on December 13th, 2005 Swift began a Target of Opportunity
observation of IGR J01538+6713, a recently discovered hard X-ray transient
source discovered by INTEGRAL (Steiner et al., ATEL #672). Analysis of
5ks of XRT data from this observation reveals a single point source inside
the INTEGRAL 2 arcminute radius error circle at the following coordinates:

RA = 01:58:18.2, Dec =  +67:13:25.9 (J2000),

with an estimated uncertainty of 3.5 arcseconds (90% containment). This
location is 17 arcseconds from the INTEGRAL position reported in ATEL #672,
and is not consistent with the position of any catalogued X-ray source.
A J=11.5 2MASS catalogue object is 2.9 arcseconds from the XRT position.
This object is also present in the USNO catalogue, with reported magnitudes
of R=13.9 and B=15.3. We encourage optical follow-up of this location to
determine if this source in the optical counterpart of IGR J01538+6713.

Spectral fitting of this source is uncertain, due to low source flux. However
an absorbed power-law model shows that IGRJ01583+6713 is highly absorbed,
with N_H approximately 10^23 cm^-2. This absorption is in excess of the
estimated galactic value of N_H is 4.7 x 10^21 cm^-1. The measured flux
is approximately 1.5 x 10^-11 erg/s/cm^-2 (0.2-10 keV), uncorrected for
absorption. IGR J01583+6713 does not appear to be fading during our observation.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Password Certification:  Jamie A. Kennea (kennea at astro.psu.edu)
http://www.astronomerstelegram.org/?read=673
==============================================================================