Discovery of VHE Gamma-Ray Emission from the BL Lac S2 0109+22

I am very happy to announce this discovery as the first discovery that i was involved in.

The MAGIC collaboration reports the discovery of very high energy (VHE; E>100 GeV) gamma-ray emission from the BL Lac S2 0109+22 (z=0.265 RA: 01h12m05.8s Dec:+22d44m39s, J2000). The object was observed with the MAGIC telescopes for 5.3 hours from 2015/07/22 to 2015/07/25. The preliminary analysis of the first three nights of MAGIC data showed an excess with a statistical significance of ~5 standard deviations. The VHE flux of this detection was estimated to be (1.6+/-0.7)e-11 ph/cm2/s above 100 GeV, about 3% of the flux from the Crab nebula. The daily flux shows a marked enhancement on the night of 25 July up to (9.7+/-1.5)e-11 ph/cm^2/s, ~15% of the Crab flux at E>100 GeV, corresponding to an excess with >7 sigma statistical significance. S2 0109+22 is classified as an intermediate-synchrotron peaked BL Lac object. The multi-year optical and radio historical coverage showed optical variations with typical timescales from weeks to months.

See more:
http://www.astronomerstelegram.org/?read=7844  

BL Lacertae activity at VHE gamma-rays

The MAGIC telescopes have detected Very High Energy gamma-ray flux from BL Lacertae. The preliminary analysis indicates a highly significant signal above 200 GeV. The emission is variable, with a flux of 0.4 and 0.1 times the flux of the Crab nebula above 200 GeV in the nights 14/15 and 16/17, respectively. The flux level is similar to the flaring state reported in Arlen et al. 2013. The observations were triggered by the high activity measured at optical and gamma-ray energies. X-ray ToO observations with the Swift satellite did not show any substantial enhancement in the X-ray flux.
For more information see: http://www.astronomerstelegram.org/?read=7660

Newest blazar discoveries in VHE gamma-rays band

1. Discovery of Very High Energy Gamma-Ray Emission from the distant FSRQ PKS 1441+25 with the MAGIC telescopes: This source is the second distant VHE gamma-ray source with the redshift of 0.939 (Shaw et al. 2012, ApJ, 748, 49). It is discovered by MAGIC on April 20, 2015. MAGIC is a system of two 17m-diameter Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes designed to perform gamma-ray astronomy in the energy range from 50 GeV to greater than 50 TeV. The flux above 80 GeV is estimated to be about 8e-11 cm^-2 s^-1 (16% of Crab Nebula flux). Preliminary analysis show detection significant of 6 standard deviations during ~2 hours observation in the night between 17 and 18 of April; and 11 standard deviations during ~4 hours observations in the night between 18 and 19 of April (http://www.astronomerstelegram.org/?read=7416 ). The highest optical R-band magnitude is 15.6 and was measured in the night between 21 and 22 April using KVA telescope (http://users.utu.fi/kani/1m/PKS_1441+25.html ).
   
2. MAGIC detects an increased activity from FSRQ PKS 1510-089 at very high energy gamma-rays: The redshift of this source is 0.36. The preliminary analysis shows a highly significant signal and a flux of ~20% from that of the Crab nebula above 100 GeV for the data taken from 2015/05/18 to 2015/05/19. This implies an increase by a factor of ~5 with respect to the flux reported previously in 2012. The source is active now in Optical and IR-band as well (http://www.astronomerstelegram.org/?read=7542 ). We are performing optical monitoring in R-band using KVA telescope. The current flare in Optical is the second one after 6 years since the monitoring of this source started in the Tuorla blazar monitoring program (http://users.utu.fi/kani/1m/PKS_1510-089.html )