A New Supernova Discovery/Classification
ATel #2580; Peter Nugent (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory), Mark Sullivan (University of Oxford) & D. Andrew Howell (LCOGT/UCSB)
on 22 Apr 2010; 22:50 UT
Distributed as an Instant Email Notice Supernovae
Credential Certification: Peter Nugent (penugent@lbl.gov)
Subjects: Optical, Request for Observations, Supernovae
The Type Ia supernova science working group of the Palomar Transient Factory (ATEL#1964) reports the discovery of a nearby supernova, PTF10fps. The supernova is at RA = 13:29:25.11 Dec = +11:47:46.4
(J2000), on the outskirts of NGC 5177 at a redshift of 0.0216. The supernova was discovered on Apr. 16.2 UT when it was at magnitude 18.0 in R-band (calibrated wrt the USNO catalog). There was nothing at this location on Apr 11.2 UT to a limiting magnitude of 20.9. A confirmation spectrum was taken on the Double Beam Spectrograph on the Palomar Hale telescope on Apr. 17 UT by R. Ellis and J. Cooke. Classification of the spectrum was carried out using Superfit (Howell et al. 2005) and in comparison to SNF20080514-002 (ATEL#1532) which showed it to be approximately 13 days before peak brightness. STIS/UV spectroscopic observations on the Hubble Space Telescope were triggered by the ToO program "Verifying the Utility of Type Ia Supernovae as Cosmological Probes: Evolution and Dispersion in
the Ultraviolet Spectra " (PI: R. Ellis) and by Swift with the ToO program "Unveiling New Classes of Transients with Palomar Transient Factory" (PI: S. Kulkarni). We strongly encourage additional follow-up of this source at all wavelengths.
