Electronic Telegram No. 3013
Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams
INTERNATIONAL ASTRONOMICAL UNION
CBAT Director:  Daniel W. E. Green; Hoffman Lab 209; Harvard University;
 20 Oxford St.; Cambridge, MA  02138; U.S.A.
e-mail:  cbatiau@eps.harvard.edu (alternate cbat@iau.org)
URL http://www.cbat.eps.harvard.edu/index.html
Prepared using the Tamkin Foundation Computer Network


SUPERNOVA 2012Y NEAR PGC 16138 = PSN J04502783-0329245
     S. Howerton, Arkansas City, KS, U.S.A.; A. J. Drake, S. G. Djorgovski,
A. Mahabal, M. J. Graham, and R. Williams, California Institute of Technology;
J. L. Prieto, Princeton University; M. Catelan, Pontificia Universidad
Catolica de Chile; R. H. McNaught and G. Garradd, Australian National
University; E. C. Beshore and S. M. Larson, Lunar and Planetary Laboratory,
University of Arizona; and E. Christensen, Gemini Observatory, report the
discovery of an apparent supernova in public images from the Catalina Sky
Survey (CSS).

 SN       2012 UT       R.A. (2000.0) Decl.      Mag.
 2012Y    Jan. 26.41   4 50 27.83  -03 29 24.5   18.2

The variable was designated PSN J04502783-0329245 when it was posted at the
Central Bureau's TOCP webpage and is here designated SN 2012Y based on the
spectroscopic confirmation reported below.  Additional magnitudes for 2012Y:
2011 Nov. 28.36 UT, [19.2 (CSS); 2012 Jan. 30.096, 18.5 (Joseph Brimacombe,
Cairns, Australia; remotely using a 51-cm RCOS telescope + STL11K camera + red
filter at the New Mexico Skies Observatory near Mayhill, NM, U.S.A.; position
end figures 27s.89, 24".0).  Brimacombe's image is posted at the following
website URL:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/43846774@N02/6791541287/.

     L. Tomasella, S. Benetti, A. Pastorello, S. Valenti, E. Cappellaro, P.
Ochner, and M. Turatto, Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova, Istituto Nazionale
di Astrofisica, report that a spectrogram of PSN J04502783-0329245 = SN 2012Y,
obtained on Jan. 30.90 UT with the Asiago 1.82-m Copernico Telescope (+ AFOSC;
range 350-820 nm; resolution 2.4 nm), suggests that 2012Y is a type-IIn
supernova.  Adopting a redshift of z = 0.083 for the host galaxy, the best fit
to this spectrum found by GELATO (Harutyunyan et al. 2008, A.Ap. 488, 383;
available at URL https://gelato.tng.iac.es/login.cgi) indicates that 2012Y is
similar to SN 1995G (Pastorello et al. 2002, MNRAS 333, 27).


NOTE: These 'Central Bureau Electronic Telegrams' are sometimes
      superseded by text appearing later in the printed IAU Circulars.

                         (C) Copyright 2012 CBAT
2012 February 6                  (CBET 3013)              Daniel W. E. Green