Independent discovery of a young core-collapse supernova by PTF and ROTSE

ATel #2603; A. Gal-Yam, I. Arcavi, S. Ben Ami (Weizmann Institute of Science), P. Nugent (LBNL), S. Bradley Cenko, A. M. Miller, D. Poznanski, J. S. Bloom, A. V. Filippenko (UC Berkeley), R. M. Quimby, E. O. Ofek, M. M. Kasliwal, S. R. Kulkarni (Caltech), N. M. Law (U. Toronto), R. G. Dekany, G. Rahmer, David Hale, R. Smith, J. Zolkower, V. Velur, R. Walters, J. Henning, K. Bui, D. McKenna (Caltech), and J. Jacobsen (LBNL) on behalf of the Core-Collapse working group of the Palomar Transient Factory (ATEL#1964); W. Zheng and F. Yuan, University of Michigan; J. Vinko, University of Szeged; R. Quimby, California Institute of Technology; D. Chamarro, M. D. Sisson, N. Whallon, C. Akerlof, and S. B. Pandey, University of Michigan ; J. C. Wheeler and E. Chatzopoulos, University of Texas, on behalf of the ROTSE collaboration
on 8 May 2010; 21:17 UT
Distributed as an Instant Email Notice Supernovae
Credential Certification: Avishay Gal-Yam (avishay.gal-yam@weizmann.ac.il)

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The PTF (ATEL #1964) discovered a new supernova, PTF10gva. The supernova was discovered on May 5.2 UT at  RA(J2000) = 12:23:55.40  and DEC(J2000) = 10:34:50.7 at a magnitude of 18.2 in R-band (calibrated with respect to the USNO catalog) in the galaxy SDSS J122355.39+103448.9 (z=0.0275). The supernova was not detected to mag 21.0 on May 3.3 UT (3-sigma). By May 7.2 UT is had risen in brightness to magnitude 17.4. A spectrum was obtained using the Low-Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (LRIS; Oke et al. 1995, PASP, 107, 375) on the Keck I 10-m telescope at May 6.4 UT, revealing the source to be a very blue, nearly featureless Type II supernovae exhibiting a weak H-alpha feature and He II 4686. ROTSE-III independently discovered the new supernova (mag about 17.9) in unfiltered images taken on May 5.29 UT with the 0.45-m ROTSE-IIIb telescope at McDonald Observatory. The new object, which was observed again on May 6.16 at mag 17.5 from ROTSE-IIIb and on May 7.88 at mag 16.9 from ROTSE-IIId (at the Turkish National Observatory at Bakirlitepe, Turkey), is located at R.A. = 12h23m55s.49, Decl. = +10o34'51".2 (equinox 2000.0; uncertainty about 1"), which is 1".4 east and 2".2 north of the center of the host galaxy, SDSS J122355.39+103448.9; a finding chart for the object can be found at website URL http://www.rotse.net/rsvp/j122355.5+103451/j122355.5+103451.jpg A spectrum, obtained on 2010 May 7.26 UT with the 9.2-m Hobby-Eberly Telescope (+Marcario Low-Resolution Spectrograph) by M. Shetrone, shows a featureless blue continuum suggesting a very early Type II SN. The redshift, estimated from a narrow Halpha feature from the host, is z=0.0275 in perfect agreement with the value given by SDSS.