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Abstract:

We present optical and near-infrared (NIR) photometry and NIR spectroscopy of SN 2004am, the only optically detected supernova (SN) in M82. These demonstrate that SN 2004am was a highly reddened Type II-P SN similar to the low-luminosity Type II-P events such as SNe 1997D and 2005cs.We show that SN 2004am was located coincident with the obscured super star cluster M82-L, and from the cluster age infer a progenitor mass of 12+7 -3M. In addition to this, we present a high spatial resolution Gemini-North Telescope K-band adaptive optics image of the site of SN 2008iz and a second transient of uncertain nature, both detected so far only at radio wavelengths. Using image subtraction techniques together with archival datafrom the Hubble Space Telescope, we are able to recover a NIR transient source coincident with both objects. We find the likely extinction towards SN 2008iz to be not more than AV~10. The nature of the second transient remains elusive and we regard an extremely bright microquasar in M82 as the most plausible scenario. © 2013 The Authors. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society.