EP260224a
GCN Circular 43842
Subject
EP260224a: LCO optical upper limits
Date
2026-02-26T12:00:50Z (21 days ago)
From
Rob Eyles-Ferris at U of Leicester <raje1@leicester.ac.uk>
Via
Web form
R. A. J. Eyles-Ferris (Leicester), A. van Hoof (Radboud), A. Martin-Carrillo (UCD), P. G. Jonker (Radboud), and A. J. Levan (Radboud) report on behalf of a larger collaboration:
We observed the field of the fast X-ray transient EP260224a (Yang et al., GCN 43828) using LCO 1m telescopes located at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (Chile) and the South African Astronomical Observatory (South Africa) equipped with the SINISTRO instrument. A series of 6x300 s exposures were taken in each of the SDSS-r and SDSS-z filters, starting at 2026-02-26 03:25:00 UT (32.4 hr after the trigger) and 2026-02-25 23:23:55 UT (30.3 hr after the trigger) respectively.
We performed subtractions on our stacked images using a template image from the KMTNet Synoptic Survey of the Southern Sky (Kim et al. 2016, doi:10.5303/JKAS.2016.49.1.37) and compared the stacks and template manually. No new source is detected within or at the border of the EP/WXT uncertainty region (Yang et al., GCN 43828). From the stacked images, we obtain the following 3-sigma upper limits:
r > 23.6
z > 21.6
These upper limits are in AB magnitudes, calibrated using nearby stars from the SkyMapper catalog, and are not corrected for Galactic extinction.
GCN Circular 43828
Subject
EP260224a: Einstein Probe detection of an X-ray transient
Date
2026-02-25T09:01:39Z (22 days ago)
From
EP Team at NAOC/CAS <ep_ta@bao.ac.cn>
Via
Web form
Guojiong Yang(NAO, CAS), Jiaying Cao(IHEP), Wenfeng Wen(SZTU) and Haiwu Pan (NAO, CAS) on behalf of the Einstein Probe (EP) team:
We report on the detection of an X-ray transient by the Wide-field X-ray Telescope (WXT) on board the Einstein Probe (EP) mission, designated EP260224a. The transient triggered EP-WXT at 2026-02-24T17:03:42 (UTC). The WXT position of the source is R.A. = 175.200 deg, DEC = -41.415 deg (J2000) with an uncertainty of 3 arcmin in radius (90% C.L. statistical and systematic).
A follow-up observation with the Follow-up X-ray Telescope (FXT) started at 2026-02-25T06:21:59 (UTC), approximately 13 hours after the WXT trigger. No onboard alert was generated by FXT during this observation.
Further follow-up observations are encouraged.
Launched on January 9, 2024, EP is a space X-ray observatory to monitor the soft X-ray sky with X-ray follow-up capability (Yuan et al. 2022, Handbook of X-ray and Gamma-ray Astrophysics).