------------------------------------------------------------------- THE ASTRONOMER Electronic Circular No 2966 2013 Dec 03 19.31UT Ed:Guy M Hurst, 16,Westminster Close, Kempshott Rise, Basingstoke, Hants, RG22 4PP,England.Telephone/FAX(01256)471074Int:+441256471074 INTERNET: GUY@TAHQ.DEMON.CO.UK Backup: gmh@wdcc1.bnsc.rl.ac.uk WORLD WIDE WEB http://www.theastronomer.org ------------------------------------------------------------------- MASTER SLOW MOVING OBJECT - MASDB2 (=TA29DCF) D. Denisenko et. al., Moscow State University reports on The Astronomer's Telegram 5610 that the MASTER-Amur auto-detection system discovered an optical transient (OT) source at: RA 07h 49m 13.45s DEC -07 03' 50.7" (2000) on 2013 Nov 28.741UT. The OT unfiltered magnitude is 15.7 (limit 17.8m). It is visible on six images with 60-sec exposures starting from 17:45:37 to 17:54:28 UT. 50 minutes later the object was detected again 12" away, having moved by 9"N, 8"E. The object was checked using Minor Planet Checker and NEO Checker. The only known object within 15' radius was a mag 18.8 asteroid (74067). The following astrometry was obtained using 7 images of 12: MASDB2 * C2013 11 28.74037 07 49 13.45 -07 03 51.2 16.2 R MASDB2 C2013 11 28.74288 07 49 13.41 -07 03 50.7 16.3 R MASDB2 C2013 11 28.74530 07 49 13.37 -07 03 49.9 15.8 R MASDB2 C2013 11 28.77625 07 49 12.91 -07 03 45.4 15.7 R MASDB2 C2013 11 28.77749 07 49 12.89 -07 03 44.4 16.4 R MASDB2 C2013 11 28.78028 07 49 12.83 -07 03 43.3 15.8 R MASDB2 C2013 11 28.78269 07 49 12.73 -07 03 42.8 16.3 R They note that the object is showing fast variability with a period of about 5 minutes (or 10 minutes, supposing double-peaked light curve). The amplitude of variations is about 0.8m, from 15.7 to 16.5 unfiltered magnitude, and did not change in 50 minutes between two MASTER-Amur observations. This leads to the conclusion that it could be a tumbling near-Earth asteroid or a man-made object. D. Denisenko further reports on The Astronomer's telegram 5616 that following communication from K. Sokolovsky, and a check of the Minor Planet Center's "Distant Artificial Satellites Observation Page", one of those objects named TA29DCF matched the observations of MASDB2 within 15' accuracy in position, 1.5m in brightness and mostly importantly, in the slow motion (about 0.2" per minute). A Google search has shown that TA29DCF is actually an upper stage of RadioAstron (Spektr-R) telescope developed by the Astro Space Center of the Lebedev Physical Institute and launched into high-apogee orbit on 2011 July 18. The latest orbit computation by Bill Gray on 2013 Nov. 19 gives the following parameters: a=175314 km, e=0.9428776, i=6.55675,q=10014 km, Q=340614 km, P=8.46d, H=27.9. SUPERNOVA 2013fu = GRB 130831A Sylvio Klose et. al., European Southern Observatory (ESO) and others report that they observed the optical transient after the reported outburst of the gamma-ray burst GRB 130831A located RA 23h 54m 36s, DEC +29 26' 53" (2000), see: http://gcn.gsfc.nasa.gov/gcn3/15139.gcn3 with the VLT+ FORS2 on Sept 29. The spectrum was reminiscent of SN 2003lw = GRB 031203, SN 2012eb = GRB 120714B, SN 2013ez = GRB 130215A, SN 2013cq = GRB 130427A and SN 2013dx = GRB 130702. The conclusion is that this shows the spectroscopic discovery of the appearance of a broad-line supernova following GRB 130831A at z = 0.4791 confirms a supernova but it is uncertain as to whether it is type-Ib or type-Ic. Guy M Hurst