GCN Circular 1339
Subject
GRB020331: Optical Observations of Afterglow Candidate
Event
Date
2002-04-08T17:15:16Z (23 years ago)
From
George Ricker at MIT <grr@space.mit.edu>
GRB020331: Optical Observations of Afterglow Candidate
G. Monnelly, A. Dullighan, N. Butler, R. Vanderspek, G. Ricker (MIT)
write:
We observed the HETE error circle of GRB020331 (Ricker et al., GCN
#1315) with the Baade 6.5m telescope at Magellan on 2002 April 1.22 UT
using LDSS-2. The observations took place 12.7 hours after the burst.
Seven 90s R-band exposures were used to mosaic the entire HETE error
circle. The limiting magnitude was R = 23.5, with 0.6" seeing.
We detect the afterglow candidate reported by Fox et. al. (GCN #1334)
at R = 21.05 +/- 0.11. In comparison to their finding chart, the OT
is clearly separated in our image from the stellar object 3.9 arcsec
to the southeast, and we detect the reference star at R = 18.52 +/-
0.11. Magnitudes are calibrated against star G020331 (R = 18.945)
from the photometry of Henden et. al. (GCN #1319).
Further, Fox et. al. (GCN #1334) report a weak detection of the
candidate on Mar 31.78, in observations having a limiting magnitude
of R ~ 19.5 mag. If we take R = 19.5 as an upper limit on the magnitude
at this epoch, then our observations constrain the power law decay
index to be steeper than alpha = 0.8.
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