KAIT Independent Discovery and Robotic Follow-up Observations of the Young Type-IIn Supernova in NGC 3448: PSN J10543413+5417569
ATel #5770; W. Zheng, W. Li, A. V. Filippenko (UC Berkeley), and S. B. Cenko (Goddard Space Flight Center)
on 15 Jan 2014; 20:20 UT
Credential Certification: Weikang Zheng (zwk@umich.edu)
Subjects: Optical, Supernovae
We report the independent discovery, with the 0.76-m Katzman Automatic
Imaging Telescope (KAIT) at Lick Observatory, of the young type-IIn
supernova in the nearby galaxy NGC 3448. The object (dubbed PSN
J03490564-0303283 by the IAU) was discovered by Itagaki & Yamagata on
Jan 14.574 and was then classified as a young type-IIn supernova by Ochner
et al. (ATel #5767). KAIT independently discovered the supernova in an
unfiltered image obtained at 2014 Jan. 15.393, about one day after
the first report. KAIT autonomously began a sequence of triggered
follow-up observations in the U, B, V, R, I, and clear (roughly R)
filters beginning only 5 minutes later. Using stars from the USNO-B1
catalog for reference, we measure R = 15.3 mag. Previous KAIT imaging on
2014 Jan. 06 revealed no emission at this location to a limit of about
19.2 mag (R). A finding chart is posted at the following website: http://astro.berkeley.edu/~zwk/findingchart/PSN_J10543413+5417569.jpg
