Since one goal of the Nearby Campaign is to find supernova as early as possible prior to maximum, it is essential that good candidates be reported and added to the list of follow-up objects as soon as they are found. The cut-off for acceptance of candidates is a signal-to-noise of 5, otherwise there will be too many spurious candidates given the large number of pixels being searched.

There are three basic steps that should be taken once a candidate is found:

1. Use the Add A Candidate feature of WhatsUp to add the candidate to the follow-up database. The minimal required information is:


• SN celestial coordinates, (equinox B1950)
• Offset wrt host galaxy, in (equinox B1950) arcseconds
• Offset-star (V < 17) celestial coordinates, in (equinox B1950) arcseconds
• Estimated discovery magnitude and filter (use Initial Values form)
• Discovery signal-to-noise ratio
• Date of discovery image (to nearest 0.1 day)
• Date of reference image (to nearest day)
• Whether point source is present at SN location in reference or DSS image
• Host type
• Group whose data lead to discovery
• Name of discovery group


It you cannot get Add A Candidate to work, please e-mail the above information, as described in item 3 below. Other than the discovery magnitude, the settings in the Add A Candidate Initial Values form should be left at their default values for now.


2. Submit a finder chart showing the supernova, the host galaxy, and at least one offset star (the offset star whose coordinates were submitted to WhatsUp). The suggested field size is 3x3 arcminutes. The most desirable graphics format is Postscript, although other formats with commonly available web-compatiable readers can be used as well. Finder charts can be submitted in the following ways:
• Non-SCP searchers should e-mail a postscript finder chart to galdering@lbl.gov, raknop@lbl.gov, and rmquimby@lbl.gov. One of these people will then install the finder chart and send return notification to the sender and to each other.
• SCP searchers outside LBL should ftp a postscript finder chart to /home/panisse/www/htdocs/nearsearch/fcharts at LBL using the deep account, and then add a link to /home/panisse/www/htdocs/nearsearch/fcharts/index.html using the sample link as a guide.
• SCP searchers inside LBL should place a postscript finder chart in /home/panisse/www/production/htdocs/nearsearch/fcharts and update index.html in the same directory, using the sample link as a guide.


3. Send e-mail reiterating the data from item 1, above, and describing what finder chart information has been provided, to galdering@lbl.gov, raknop@lbl.gov, and rmquimby@lbl.gov. Someday we might get WhatsUp to do this! In the meantime this e-mail will help in verifying the data that goes into the follow-up database.