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GCN Circular 1767

Subject
VLT spectra of GRB 021211 revisited
Date
2002-12-19T15:20:55Z (22 years ago)
From
Paul Vreeswijk at ESO <pvreeswi@eso.org>
Paul Vreeswijk (ESO), Ingunn Burud, Andrew Fruchter (STScI) & Andrew
Levan (U. of Leicester/STScI) report for the GRACE collaboration:

We have determined that the slit position used in the VLT service
observations of GRB 021211, reported in GCN 1756, was 1 to 1.5
arcseconds East of the expected position due to the saturation of the
offset star in the acquisition images. The position angle of the slit
was zero degrees, i.e. aligned along the North-South direction, the
seeing during the observations was 0.65", and the slit width was 1".

Consequently, the object 1.5" to the North-East of the afterglow (see
GCNs 1759, 1750, 1758, 1765), is by accident mostly contained within
the slit, while the emission from the position of the afterglow is not
or only partly. Therefore, the reported redshift most likely belongs
to the galaxy 1.5" away from the transient, as suggested by Caldwell
and colleagues (GCN 1759). Future observations are needed to prove or
disprove that this galaxy is in fact the GRB host.
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