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R.H. Becker, M.D. Gregg, S. Laurent-Muehleisen (UCD & IGPP/LLNL), R.L. White (STScI), M. Brotherton (KPNO), D.J. Helfand (Columbia)
The FIRST team has an ongoing program to identify radio-selected quasars by matching the FIRST survey to the APM catalog of POSS 1 stellar objects. Confirming spectra are taken at a variety of optical telescopes. In a recent observing run at Keck Observatory, a new BAL quasar at a redshift of 2.43 was identified. Inspection of the FIRST image showed an associated FRII radio double. Subsequent higher resolution radio images from the VLA revealed an arcsec scale jet emanating from the quasar at the same position angle as the arcmin radio double. The new BAL quasar is singular in so far as the other 30+ BAL quasars from the FIRST survey are all compact radio sources. The entire sample calls into question the widely held belief that that the BAL phenomenon can be explained as ordinary quasars viewed at a special orientation.
We acknowledge funding from NSF and IGPP/LLNL.