A new Supernova was discovered in the galaxy known as M66 on May 28, 2016.

I thought I’d get an image of this new discovery for myself and logged into the remote iTelescope at the AstroCamp Observatory in Nerpio, Spain. This is a Planewave 17″ CDK with a focal length of 2929mm and an SBIG STL-11000M CCD.

This is a 10min luminance exposure taken on May 29, 2016 at 6:27pm EDT. Nothing fancy was done to this image other than stretching it (histogram) and circling the Supernova itself. The transparency that night in Spain wasn’t the best but enough I was able to take this image of the newly discovered Supernova.

The Atel website reported:

During the ongoing All Sky Automated Survey for SuperNovae (ASAS-SN or “Assassin”), using data from the quadruple 14-cm “Brutus” telescope in Haleakala, Hawaii, we discovered a new transient source, most likely a supernova, in the galaxy M66.

ASASSN-16fq (AT 2016cok) was discovered in images obtained on UT 2016-05-28.30 at V ~ 16.7 mag. We do not detect (V>17.1) the object in images taken on UT 2016-05-24.32 and before. An image obtained on UT 2016-05-28.47 by G. Bock confirms the discovery of the transient. This figure shows the archival DSS image of the host (left) and the G. Bock confirmation image (right). The red circle has a radius of 10″ and is centered on the position of the transient in the G. Bock image.

The position of ASASSN-16fq is approximately 69″ from the center of the galaxy M66 (z=0.002425, d=10 Mpc, via NED), giving an absolute V-band magnitude of approximately -13.4 (m-M=30, A_V=0.09). Properties of the new source and photometry are summarized in the tables below:

This discovery was also posted on the AAVSO website (American Association of Variable Star Observers), in the time sensitive alerts:

SN 2016cok (= ASASSN-16fq): Type IIP Supernova in M66

Discovery by the All Sky Automated Survey for SuperNovae (ATel #9091):
http://www.astronomerstelegram.org/?read=9091

“This figure shows the archival DSS image of the host (left) and the G. Bock confirmation image (right)”:
http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~assassin/followup/asassn-16fq.png

Spectroscopic classification (ATel #9093):
http://www.astronomerstelegram.org/?read=9093

 

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