Discovery of a supernova ROTSE3 J234011.7+272516
ATel #1321; F. Yuan (U. Mich.), R. Quimby (Caltech), C. Akerlof (U. Mich.) and J. C. Wheeler (U. Texas) on behalf of the ROTSE collaboration
on 7 Dec 2007; 05:29 UT
Credential Certification: Fang Yuan (yuanfang@umich.edu)
Subjects: Optical, Nova, Supernovae
We report the discovery of a supernova, located at RA: 23:40:11.74 Dec: +27:25:16.5 (J2000 uncertainty <1"), in unfiltered CCD images taken by the 0.45m ROTSE-IIIb telescope at McDonald Observatory, Texas. The SN was discovered at ~17.2 mag on Nov 28.11 UT. It was also detected at ~18.2 mag on Nov 24.06 UT and was observed to rise to ~16.3 mag on Dec 5.11 UT. The SN is 2.2" east and 5.9" north from a possibly extended object (USNO B1.0 R=19.59) seen in DSS. A finding chart of the supernova can be found at: http://www.rotse.net/transients/j2340+2725/j234011.7+272516.jpg
A spectrum (420-890 nm) of the SN obtained on Dec 6.16 UT with the 9.2m Hobby-Eberly Telescope (+ Marcario Low-Resolution Spectrograph) by S. Odewahn and A. Westfall shows it to be a Type Ia supernova. The spectra are similar to 1994D just prior to maximum light (Patat et al. 1996, MNRAS 278,111). Using the 1994D spectra as a template, we find an approximate redshift of z=0.03, which is compatible with the nearby ABELL 2634 galaxy cluster (z=0.031; Oegerle & Hill 2001).
