Near-IR Adaptive Optics Localization of PSN J09554214+6940260

ATel #5789; S. P. Tendulkar (Caltech), M. C. Liu (IfA/Hawaii), T. J. Dupuy (CfA/SAO), Y. Cao (Caltech) on behalf of the larger intermediate Palomar Transient Factory collaboration
on 23 Jan 2014; 03:30 UT
Distributed as an Instant Email Notice Supernovae
Credential Certification: Shriharsh Tendulkar (spt@astro.caltech.edu)

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Following the classification of PSN J09554214+6940260 by Cao et al. (ATel #5786), five 10-s K-band exposures were acquired with the NIRC2 wide camera at the 10-m Keck II telescope supported by the adaptive optics system. The supernova was used as the natural guide star for the adaptive optics correction.

The acquired images were reduced, defringed, dedistorted and coadded using standard procedures. The typical FWHM was 9 pixels (0.36") at a distance of 10" from the supernova. The delivered image quality was below typical due to poor seeing conditions. 48 stars were detected in the image.

The coadded image was matched with 8 stars in an F814W band image from the HST Heritage archive (hlsp_heritage_hst_acs-wfc_m82_f814w_v1_sci_sci.fits) using the ccmap tool in IRAF. The RMS error in matching was 0.023" in right ascension and 0.0437" in declination respectively, not including the systematic WCS error in the HST image. The best position of the supernova is calculated to be RA = 9:55:42.217(1) Dec = 69:40:26.56(4) in J2000 coordinates with respect to the HST image.

The HST image with the position overlaid is available at http://www.astro.caltech.edu/~spt/PSNJ09554214p6940260.png The supernova position is marked by the red cross. The 48 stars detected in the NIRC2 image are marked by blue crosses. The 8 stars used for matching the NIRC2 image to the HST image are circled in red.

Preliminary analysis does not reveal a progenitor for the supernova. Multi-wavelength archival comparisons are necessary to evaluate the progenitor limits.

HST Image overlaid with NIRC2 measurements