GCN Circular 43735
Subject
EP260213a: Optical upper limits with Kinder observations
Event
Date
2026-02-14T13:48:03Z (8 months ago)
From
Amar Aryan at National Central University, Institute of Astronomy (NCUIA) <amararyan941@gmail.com>
Via
Web form
A. Aryan, C.-S. Lin, T.-W. Chen (all NCU), A. K. H. Kong (NTHU), J. H. Gillanders, S. J. Smartt (both Oxford), Y. J. Yang (NYUAD), Y.-H. Lee, A. Sankar.K, M.-H. Lee, C.-H. Lai, Y.-C. Pan, C.-C. Ngeow, W.-J. Hou, H.-Y. Hsiao, H.-C. Lin, J.-K. Guo (all NCU), S. Yang, Z. N. Wang, L. L. Fan, G. H. Sun (all HNAS), H.-W. Lin (UMich), H. F. Stevance, S. Srivastav, L. Rhodes (all Oxford), M. Nicholl, M. Fulton, T. Moore, K. W. Smith, C. Angus, A. Aamer (all QUB), A. Schultz, and M. Huber (both IfA, Hawaii) report:
We observed the field of the fast X-ray transient EP260213a (Yang et al. GCN 43729, Li et al. GCN 43730) using the 40cm SLT at the Lulin observatory, as part of the Kinder collaboration (Chen & Yang et al. 2025, ApJ, 983, 86, doi:10.3847/1538-4357/adb428). The first SLT epoch of observations in r-band started at 20:12 UTC on 13th of February 2026 (MJD 61084.842), 0.22 hr after the EP-WXT trigger.
We utilized the astroalign (Beroiz et al. 2020, A&C, 32, 100384) and astropy (Astropy Collaboration et al. 2022, ApJ, 935, 167) packages to align and stack the individual frames. We used the Python-based AutoPhOT package (Brennan & Fraser 2022, A&A, 667, A62) to perform template subtraction with the DESI Legacy Survey (Dey et al. 2019, AJ 157, 168) DR10 using the 'SFFT' (Hu et al. 2022, ApJ, 936, 157) algorithm. Either in the stacked frame or in the difference image, we do not detect any new or uncataloged sources within the 10" refined EP-FXT localization circle.
Moreover, we used AutoPhOT to perform PSF photometry. The details of the observations and the measured 3-sigma upper limits (in the AB system) are as follows:
Telescope | Filter | MJD (start) | t-t0 (hr) | Exposure (s) | Magnitude | avg. Seeing | med. Airmass
SLT | r | 61084.842 | 0.22 | 300 * 18 | >21.6 | 2".5 | 1.70
The non-detection in our observations is consistent with those reported by Cotter et al. (GCN 43728), Wu et al. (GCN 43731), Maksut et al. (GCN 43732), Pankov et al. (GCN 43733), and Li et al. (GCN 43734).
The presented magnitude is calibrated using the field stars from the ATLAS-RefCat2 catalog from MAST (Tonry J. L. et al. 2018, ApJ, 867, 105) and is not corrected for the expected Galactic foreground extinction of A_r = 0.106 mag in the direction of the transient (Schlafly & Finkbeiner 2011). The methodology, details on the Lulin observatory telescopes, and a compilation of our optical follow-up campaign for FXTs discovered within the first year of operation of the Einstein-Probe mission are presented in Aryan et al. 2025, ApJS, 281, 20, doi:10.3847/1538-4365/adfc69.