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 ten days after peak , we detected it at V \simeq 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 SN is similar to the over-luminous Type Ia SN 1991T , with a peak at M _ { V } \simeq - 19.6 mag , and a slow decline rate of \Delta m _ { 15 } ( B ) \simeq 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 SNe .
Interestingly , SN 2009nr has a projected distance of 13.0 kpc ( \sim 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 \lesssim 50 Mpc ) supernovae .