Masini, A., Comastri, A., Puccetti, S., Baloković, M., Gandhi, P., Guainazzi, M., Bauer, F.E., Boggs, S.E., Boorman, P.G., Brightman, M., Christensen, F.E., Craig, W.W., Farrah, D., Hailey, C.J., Harrison, F.A., Koss, M.J., LaMassa, S.M., Ricci, C., Stern, D., Walton, D.J. and Zhang, W.W. (2016) The Phoenix galaxy as seen by NuSTAR. Astronomy & Astrophysics, 1-10. (In Press)
Abstract
Aims. We study the long-term variability of the well-known Seyfert 2 galaxy Mrk 1210 (a.k.a. UGC 4203, or the Phoenix galaxy).
Methods. The source was observed by many X-ray facilities in the last 20 years. Here we present a NuSTAR observation and put the results in context of previously published observations.
Results. NuSTAR observed Mrk 1210 in 2012 for 15.4 ks. The source showed Compton-thin obscuration similar to that observed by Chandra, Suzaku, BeppoSAX and XMM-Newton over the past two decades, but different from the first observation by ASCA in 1995, in which the active nucleus was caught in a low flux state - or obscured by Compton-thick matter, with a reflection-dominated spectrum. Thanks to the high-quality hard X-ray spectrum obtained with NuSTAR and exploiting the long-term spectral coverage spanning 16.9 years, we can precisely disentangle the transmission and reflection components and put constraints on both the intrinsic long-term variability and hidden nucleus scenarios. In the former case, the distance between the reflector and the source must be at least ~ 2 pc, while in the latter one the eclipsing cloud may be identified with a water maser-emitting clump.
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