The First Optical Transient Discoveries from MLS

ATel #2318; A. J. Drake, S. G. Djorgovski, A. A. Mahabal, M. J. Graham, R. Williams (Caltech); M. Catelan (PUC); E. C. Beshore, S. M. Larson, A. Boattini, A. Gibbs, A. Grauer, R. Hill, R. Kowalski (LPL/UA); E. Christensen (Gemini Observatory)
on 30 Nov 2009; 03:30 UT
Credential Certification: Andrew J. Drake (ajd@cacr.caltech.edu)

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We report on the discovery of optical transients by the Catalina Real-time Transient Survey (CRTS) in data from the Catalina Sky Survey's 1.5m Mount Lemmon Survey (MLS) telescope. The transients were discovered between 2009-11-11 and 2009-11-24 UT and have the following parameters:

ID	Detection Date	RA	Dec	Mag	Type
MLS091124:104128+072329	2009-11-24 UT 11:58:54	10:41:27.52	07:23:29.4	20.6	SN
SN 2009lx	2009-11-24 UT 12:37:57	11:40:18.85	03:00:18.4	17.1	SN
MLS091123:001329+010938	2009-11-23 UT 03:13:50	00:13:29.05	01:09:38.3	21.3	SN?
MLS091119:022158+193204	2009-11-19 UT 06:42:05	02:21:58.50	19:32:04.9	20.8	SN
MLS091116:235519-054237	2009-11-16 UT 04:19:53	23:55:18.98	-05:42:36.8	18.6	SN
MLS091111:002931+033750	2009-11-11 UT 06:09:25	00:29:31.43	03:37:50.9	20.1	SN
MLS091117:035914+133442	2009-11-17 UT 09:08:25	03:59:14.49	13:34:42.5	18.4	Blazar?

The discoveries were made by comparison to sources measured in MLS coadds reaching magnitude ~23 as well as SDSS, PQ, CSS, CFHT, NOAO and DSS data. MLS091117:035914+133442 appears to be associated with radio source NVSS J035914+133444. All transients were made within minutes of observation and sent as VOEvent alerts. Follow-up is requested.

Additional transients and variable sources from the MLS 1.5m are regularly posted at http://nesssi.cacr.caltech.edu/MLS/Allns.html

Automated event alerts can be obtained from SkyAlert.org. All CRTS discoveries are made openly available. Additional info on CRTS can be found here: http://crts.caltech.edu