Circular No. 8505
Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams
INTERNATIONAL ASTRONOMICAL UNION
Mailstop 18, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.
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POSSIBLE NOVA IN SERPENS
     Further to IAUC 8402 and 8495, G. Pojmanski reports the ASAS
discovery of a possible nova located at R.A. = 17h49m24s, Decl. =
-13o00'00" (equinox 2000.0); he gives the following V magnitudes
for the new object:  Mar. 14.389 UT, [14; 18.345, 13.3; 21.374,
11.8; 27.352, 12.7.  G. Masi, University of Rome 'Tor Vergata',
reports that he and R. Wilcox obtained five unfiltered CCD images
of this object remotely on Apr. 4.353 (with the new star at mag
11.5) using the 0.36-m f/7 'SoTIE' telescope at Las Campanas,
yielding the following precise position:  R.A. = 17h49m24s.57,
Decl. = -12o59'59".2.  Masi adds that nothing is visible at this
location on Digitized Sky Survey images (including a 1982 plate
with a limiting magnitude of roughly 19.5).


SUPERNOVA 2005bd IN MCG +09-11-2
     Further to IAUC 8473, T. Boles reports the discovery of an
apparent supernova (mag 17.7) on unfiltered CCD images taken on
Apr. 3.932 and 4.849 UT.  The new object is located at R.A. =
6h12m03s.50, Decl. = +51o52'03".3, which is approximately 0".9 west
and 12".0 north of the center of MCG +09-11-2.  Nothing is present
at this location on Boles' images from 2004 Nov. 20 and 2005 Jan. 5
(limiting mag 19.5) or on Digitized Sky Survey plates from 1989
(limiting red mag 21.0) and 1992 (limiting blue mag 20.5).


SUPERNOVA 2005bc IN NGC 5698
     M. Modjaz, R. Kirshner, and P. Challis, Harvard-Smithsonian
Center for Astrophysics, report that a spectrum (range 340-730 nm)
of SN 2005bc (cf. IAUC 8504), obtained on Apr. 3.33 UT by P.
Nutzman with the Mt. Hopkins 1.5-m telescope (+ FAST), shows it to
be a type-Ia supernova with a spectral-feature age (cf. Riess et al.
1997, A.J. 114, 722) of about 3 (+/- 2) days before maximum light.
The supernova expansion velocity, derived from the minimum of Si II
(rest 635.5 nm) and adopting the NED recession velocity of 3679
km/s for the host galaxy, is about 12000 km/s.  A higher-S/N
spectrogram taken on Apr. 4.33 confirms the classification and
exhibits Si II absorption at 580 nm (rest 597.9 nm) that is
stronger than usual, relative to the Si II absorbtion at 610 nm
(rest 635.5 nm), suggesting that this supernova might be less
luminous than a normal type-Ia supernova.  Interstellar Na I D
absorption at the redshift of the host galaxy with an equivalent
width of about 0.2 nm is detected, indicating gas along the line-
of-sight in the host galaxy and thus suggesting reddening by dust.

                      (C) Copyright 2005 CBAT
2005 April 4                   (8505)            Daniel W. E. Green