DETECTION OF AN OUTBURST ONE YEAR PRIOR TO THE EXPLOSION OF SN 2011ht

Using imaging from the Pan-STARRS1 survey, we identify a precursor outburst at 287 and 170 days prior to the reported explosion of the purported Type IIn supernova (SN) 2011ht. In the Pan-STARRS data, a source coincident with SN 2011ht is detected exclusively in the z P1 and y P1 -bands. An absolute magnitude of M z -11.8 suggests that this was an outburst of the progenitor star. Unfiltered, archival Catalina Real Time Transient Survey images also reveal a coincident source from at least 258 to 138 days before the main event. We suggest that the outburst is likely to be an intrinsically red eruption, although we cannot conclusively exclude a series of erratic outbursts which were observed only in the…