KAIT Discovery and Follow-up Observations of a Possible Young Supernova Candidate in NGC 7331: PSN J22370560+3424319
ATel #5721; W. Zheng, W. Li, A. V. Filippenko (UC Berkeley), and S. B. Cenko (NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center)
on 5 Jan 2014; 05:13 UT
Distributed as an Instant Email Notice Supernovae
Credential Certification: Weikang Zheng (zwk@umich.edu)
Subjects: Optical, Supernovae
We report the discovery, with the 0.76-m Katzman Automatic Imaging Telescope (KAIT) at Lick Observatory, of a possible new supernova in the nearby galaxy NGC 7331 (z = 0.002722). The new object, dubbed (by the IAU) PSN J22370560+3424319, is located at (J2000.0) coordinates RA = 22:37:05.60, Dec = +34:24:31.9. Following discovery in an unfiltered image obtained at 02:12 UT on 2014 Jan. 05, we manually started a sequence of follow-up observations in the U, B, V, R, I, and clear (roughly R) filters beginning about 1.3 hours later. Using stars from the USNO-B1 catalog for reference, we measure R = 15.5 mag at this time. The object was also detected in a previous KAIT image taken just three day earlier, on Jan. 02, with R ~ 17.1 mag, indicating that the object is rising. Note that the host galaxy NGC 7331 is also the host galaxy of SN 2013bu (Itagaki et al., CBET #3498), found on Apr. 21, 2013. Spectroscopic observations are encouraged. A finding chart is available at the following website: http://astro.berkeley.edu/~zwk/findingchart/PSN_J22370560+34243193.jpg .
