Electronic Telegram No. 3855
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 2014ao IN NGC 2615 = PSN J08343332-0232361
     Further to CBET 3777, S. Kumar, A. C. Bigley, W. Zheng, W. Li, and A. V.
Filippenko, University of California at Berkeley, report the LOSS discovery of
a possible supernova in NGC 2615 on unfiltered KAIT images:

 SN       2014 UT       R.A. (2000.0) Decl.      Mag.      Offset
 2014ao   Apr. 17.23   8 34 33.32  - 2 32 36.1   15.5    0".2 W, 12".5 N

A finding chart for the variable was posted at the following website URL:
http://astro.berkeley.edu/~zwk/findingchart/PSN_J08343332-02323606.jpg.  The
variable was designated PSN J08343332-0232361 when it was posted at the
Central Bureau's TOCP webpage and is here designated SN 2014ao based on the
spectroscopic confirmation reported below.  Additional CCD magnitudes for
2014ao:  Apr. 6, [18.5 (KAIT); 12.23, 16.3 (KAIT; approximate R magnitude);
14.516, 15.3 (Toshihide Noguchi, Katori, Chiba-ken, Japan; 0.23-m f/6.3
reflector + BITRAN BT-11E camera; position end figures 33s.12, 38".0; offset
3".4 west, 10".6 north; reference stars from UCAC4 catalogue; limiting mag
17.0; image posted at http://park8.wakwak.com/~ngc/images/PSNinNGC2615.jpg;
communicated by Syuichi Nakano); 17.834, 16.2 (G. Masi, F. Nocentini, and P.
Schmeer; remotely with a 43-cm telescope near Ceccano, Italy; position end
figures 33s.32, 36".5); 18.236, 16.7 (J. Brimacombe, Cairns, Australia;
remotely using a 43-cm CDK telescope at the New Mexico Skies observatory near
Mayhill, NM, U.S.A.; position end figures 33s.34, 36".3; image posted at URL
https://www.flickr.com/photos/43846774@N02/13944828854/); 18.423, V = 16.5 (S.
Howerton; remotely with an iTelescope 0.43-m telescope at Siding Spring; image
posted at URL https://www.flickr.com/photos/watchingthesky/13905334321/).

     P. Ochner, A. Pastorello, S. Benetti, E. Cappellaro, N. Elias-Rosa, L.
Tomasella, and M. Turatto, Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova, Istituto
Nazionale di Astrofisica, report that an optical spectrogram (range 330-790
nm; resolution 0.9 nm) of PSN J08343332-0232361 = SN 2014ao, obtained on Apr.
17.79 UT with the Asiago 1.22-m Galileo Telescope (+ Boller & Chivens
spectrograph), shows it to be a type-Ia supernova.  Adopting for the host
galaxy (NGC 2615) a redshift z = 0.014 (Theureau et al. 1998, A.Ap. Suppl.
130, 333), an excellent match is found with the type-Ia supernova 2003du
(Stanishev et al. 2007, A.Ap. 469, 645) about ten days before B-band maximum
light.  An expansion velocity of about 11600 km/s is derived from the
position of the minimum of the Si II 635-nm line.  The Asiago classification
spectra are posted at URL http://sngroup.oapd.inaf.it.  Classification was
made via GELATO (Harutyunyan et al. 2008, A.Ap. 488, 383) and SNID (Blondin
and Tonry 2007, Ap.J. 666, 1024).


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

                         (C) Copyright 2014 CBAT
2014 April 21                    (CBET 3855)              Daniel W. E. Green