PRE-DISCOVERY AND FOLLOW-UP OBSERVATIONS OF THE NEARBY SN 2009nr: IMPLICATIONS FOR PROMPT TYPE Ia SUPERNOVAE

We present photometric and spectroscopic observations of the Type Ia supernova SN 2009nr in UGC 8255 (z = 0.0122). Following the discovery announcement at what turned out to be 10 days after peak, we detected it at V ≅15.7 mag in data collected by the All-Sky Automated Survey (ASAS) North telescope 2 weeks prior to the peak, and then followed it up with telescopes ranging in aperture from 10 cm to 6.5 m. Using early photometric data available only from ASAS, we find that the supernova is similar to the overluminous Type Ia SN 1991T, with a peak at MV ≅ -19.6 mag, and a slow decline rate of Δm15(B) ≅ 0.95 mag. The early post-maximum spectra closely resemble those of SN 1991T, while the late-time spectra are more similar to those of normal Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia). Interestingly, SN 2009nr has a projected distance of 13.0 kpc (∼4.3 disk scale lengths) from the nucleus of the small star-forming host galaxy UGC 8255. This indicates that the progenitor of SN 2009nr is not associated with a young stellar population, calling into question the conventional association of luminous SNe Ia with the 'prompt' component directly correlated with current star formation. The pre-discovery observation of SN 2009nr using ASAS demonstrates the science utility of high-cadence all sky surveys conducted using small telescopes for the discovery of nearby (d ∼< 50 Mpc) supernovae.