Dear SN watchers, I have heard that SN 2001el in NGC 1148 is turned out, by the VLT observation, to be of type Ia somewhat before maximum. Now it is brighter than mag 13 (visual mag 12.7 on Sept. 25.0), which is consistent with the expected magnitude for the normal SN Ia. Sincerely Yours, Hitoshi Yamaoka, Kyushu Univ., Japan yamaoka@rc.kyushu-u.ac.jp