Possible Nearby Transient discovered by PSST
ATel #8568; D. Wright, K. W. Smith, S. J. Smartt (Queen's University Belfast), M. Huber, K. C. Chambers, H. Flewelling, M. Willman, N. Primak, A. Schultz, B. Gibson, E. Magnier, C. Waters, J. Tonry, R. J. Wainscoat (IfA, Hawaii), R. J. Foley (Illinois), S. W. Jha (Rutgers), A. Rest (STScI), D. Scolnic (Chicago/KICP)
on 21 Jan 2016; 13:35 UT
Distributed as an Instant Email Notice Supernovae
Credential Certification: Ken Smith (k.w.smith@qub.ac.uk)
Subjects: Optical, Supernovae, Transient
A transient, which is a possible nearby supernova, has been discovered as part of the Pan-STARRS Survey for Transients (PSST). Information on all objects discovered by the Pan-STARRS Survey for Transients is available at http://star.pst.qub.ac.uk/ps1threepi/ (see Huber et al. ATel #7153). We will send all objects brighter than 18 mag as ATel alerts, while all other objects can be found on these webpages. Although this transient is fainter than 18, we report it here because of its proximity to UGC 8799 (distance = 12 Mpc).
Name | RA (J2000) | Dec (J2000) | Disc. Date | Disc Mag | filter | Notes
AT 2016Y | 13 53 17.45 | +05 45 52.1 | 20160117 | 19.46 | w | (1)
(1) The transient is offset by 43.8 arcsec from UGC 8799 with D=12 Mpc implying a physical offset of 2.55 kpc. Assuming the object is associated with this galaxy the absolute magnitude at discovery is -11.27. However the transient is also coincident with a faint (g=20.41) extended source, SDSS J135317.43+054553.1 with photometric redshift 0.179 from SDSS DR12. It is most likely that the transient is in this background galaxy and it is a chance alignment with UGC 8799. However a classifying spectrum is required to be sure.