Discovery and Classification of DES15S2nr as a SLSN-I by VLT and AAT

ATel #8092; C. D'Andrea, M. Smith, M. Sullivan, M. Childress (University of Southampton), B. Tucker, R. Sharp, F. Yuan, B. Zhang (Australian National University), T. M. Davis (University of Queensland), J. Mould (Swinburne University), C. Lidman (Australian National Observatory), S. Desai, K. Paech (Ludwig Maximilians University, Munich), R. C. Smith (NOAO/CTIO), M. Schubnell (University of Michigan), R. Kessler, D. Scolnic (University of Chicago), R. A. Covarrubias (University of Illinois / NCSA), D. J. Brout, J. A. Fischer, L. Gladney, M. March, M. Sako, R. C. Wolf (University of Pennsylvania), P. J. Brown, K. Krisciunas, N. Suntzeff (Texas A&M University), R. Nichol, A. Papadopoulos (University of Portsmouth), R. Maartens (University of the Western Cape), R. Gupta, E. Kovacs, S. Kuhlmann, H. Spinka (Argonne National Laboratory), E. Ahn, D. A. Finley, J. Frieman, J. Marriner, W. Wester (Fermilab), G. Aldering, A. G. Kim, R. C. Thomas (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory), K. Barbary, J. S. Bloom, D. Goldstein, P. Nugent, S. Perlmutter (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory + University of California, Berkeley), R. J. Foley (University of Illinois), F. J. Castander (ICE, IEEC/CSIC, Barcelona)
on 24 Sep 2015; 17:00 UT
Distributed as an Instant Email Notice Supernovae
Credential Certification: Mathew Smith (matsmith2@gmail.com)

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We report optical spectroscopy of DES15S2nr as a type I super-luminous supernova (SLSN-I), discovered by the Dark Energy Survey. We obtained spectra using the X-SHOOTER instrument (wavelength range 380-950nm) on the Very Large Telescope (VLT) of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) and the AAOmega Spectrograph (Saunders et al. 2004, SPIE, 5492, 389; wavelength range 370-885nm) and the 2dF fibre positioner at the Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT). Object classification was performed using superfit (Howell et al, 2005, ApJ, 634, 1190), the details of which are reported in the table below. DES15S2nr is still rising (r=20.3 on 22 September 2015), and further observations are encouraged.

  
Name       | RA (J2000)| Dec (J2000)|Discovery  |Discovery|Spectrum                            |Redshift| Type | Phase  |Notes 
           |           |            |Date (UT)  |Mag (r)  |Date (UT)                           |        |      |        | 
DES15S2nr  |02:40:44.62|-00:53:26.4 |2015 Aug 17| 21.7    |2015 Sep 18 (VLT), 2015 Sep 21 (AAT)| 0.220  |SLSN-I|pre-peak| a 
 
a). Redshift from galaxy emission features