GCN Circular 1744
Subject
GRB021211: Optical observations
Date
2002-12-13T00:32:27Z (22 years ago)
From
Don Lamb at U.Chicago <lamb@oddjob.uchicago.edu>
GRB021211: Optical observations
D. Q. Lamb, J. C. Barentine, M. C. Nysewander, D. E. Reichart,
M. Schwartz, C. Laws, D. G. York, and R. J. McMillan report,
We have observed the field of GRB021211 (Crewe et al., GCN 1734) using
the ARC 3.5-meter telescope at APO under excellent seeing conditions
but occasional high cirrus. Pointing problems prevented us from
calibrating our images using standard stars. In two 2000 second i'
images of the GRB021211 field beginning at 09:19 UT on December 12, we
detect an object which we estimate has i* > 23 at the position of the
optical afterglow of GRB021211 (Fox and Price, GCN 1731). The object
is more diffuse than the point spread function for stars that are
nearby in the images, which suggests that the object may be the host
galaxy of GRB021211. If so, the optical afterglow of GRB021211 was
fainter than about i* = 23. Comparison with I_c images taken at
Tenagra beginning 40 minutes after the burst implies that the afterglow
faded in i* by more than about 4 magnitudes in the intervening 21 hours.
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