Tue, 10/23/2012 - 18:07
An ATel (#4513) just came through suggesting a possible 6th magnitude transient in the Hyades field.
Coordinates are 04:23:29, +17:58:29, 10" error. A quick check of VSX showed nothing in that position. Minor Planet Checker also showed nothing.
All followups encouraged, especially from the spectroscopists. It is possible this is not a real detection, so confirmation of the transient is most critical.
A Special Notice will go out shortly.
Unfortunately the sky is foggy here.
Looking at the image posten on Shelton's website I suspect it can be a hot pixel. It would be good to check the original raw images (if they exist at all).
Raw
A flare of Aldebaran ?
Raw images would help, for sure. Bad weather here too, unable to confirm anything
"there is nothing within 10 arcmin of the given position which is not already present on the Palomar prints."
(Ulisse Munari posted on vsnet-alert and other lists)
The images available linked on ATEL make it look like a red sub-pixel of a Bayer matrix from a DSLR image took a cosmic ray hit ...
and the red "hot pixel" doesn't have the same PSF as the other stars - which are noticably elliptical.
I took an image of this zone using a remote telescope on the Canary islands.
Nothing visible.
http://imageshack.us/a/img823/5117/042329p1758292012102321.png
Thanks to everyone for the quick follow up observations and analysis -- I think the transient noted in ATel #4513 has been shown not to exist. I have issued Special Notice 301 to cancel the request made in SN #300.