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THE ASTRONOMER Electronic Circular No 3083      2015 Jun 14 15.04UT
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
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EDITOR'S ABSENCE
The editor will be away attending two funerals next week so absent from
Monday morning (June 15) and will return late Wednesday evening (June 17).In
the case of an urgent possible discovery please initially contact Nick James
who will contact members of the Early Warning team as necessary. Please also
send a COPY of your message to the editor's mailbox to complete our records.

OPTICAL FLARE: RA 15:16:21.2 DEC -20:08:16 
Roberto Nesci (INAF/IAPS) and others report on The Astronomer's Telegram
that on 2015 June 4, while monitoring the occultation of the star HD 132885
by the asteroid 322 (Phaeo) in a session open to the public at the Foligno
Observatory, they detected an optical flare with our Mintron intensified
camera, mounted in parallel to the main telescope as electronic finder, with
a 135mm F/2.5 objective. The camera was set to acquire images at a frame
rate of 4 fps, which were projected on a screen to allow the public to see
the occultation in real time. Stars down to V=10 were detectable on the
screen. The screen images were recorded with a camcorder at 25 fps for
documentation of the occultation event. The scale of the images on the
camcorder is 8"/pixel. Shortly after the asteroid occultation event (midtime
20:49:27.5 UT) a bright flare was detected, lasting about 1s, with a smooth
increasing and decreasing light curve covering 5 frames of the Mintron
camera. 

Astrometry with nearby Tycho-2 stars gave coordinates
15:16:21.2 -20:08:16. Apparent magnitude at the peak, derived from a
calibration with the Tycho-2 stars, was about 5 +/- 0.4 mag.  
Their time estimate of the event is 20:49:39 UT with an accuracy of a few
seconds. The shape of the flare image was quite star-like, from a comparison
with the two stars of similar magnitude in the field (iota Lib and 25 Lib),
so an electronic interference explanation seems unlikely. No other similar
episodes were ever detected by them while using this camera as an electronic
finder.  
Within the error-box on the NED there is an unclassified X-ray source, 2XMM
J151620.2-200828. No references of specific studies on this source are
available on NED.  No obvious optical counterpart is present on the DSS and
they are not aware of a GRB reported at this position at the time of our
observations. Searches in the operating Gamma ray satellite archives might
be useful to determine the nature of the source.

Editor: If you have any recent images covering the coordinates quoted, even
if not the exact date and time please e-mail details to the editor stating
whether the suspect was visible or not. Images will then be requested if
appropriate.

Guy M Hurst