GCN Circular 18163

T. N. Ukwatta (LANL), S. D. Barthelmy (GSFC), D. N. Burrows (PSU),
S. B. Cenko (GSFC), V. D'Elia (ASDC), L. Izzo (URoma/ICRA),
J. A. Kennea (PSU), F. E. Marshall (NASA/GSFC) and
B. Sbarufatti (INAF-OAB/PSU) report on behalf of the Swift Team:

At 00:50:08 UT, the Swift Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) triggered and
located GRB 150819A (trigger=652643).  Swift slewed immediately to the burst. 
The BAT on-board calculated location is 
RA, Dec 42.337, +9.784 which is 
   RA(J2000)  =  02h 49m 21s
   Dec(J2000) = +09d 47' 02"
with an uncertainty of 3 arcmin (radius, 90% containment, including 
systematic uncertainty).  As is typical for image triggers, the real-time
light curve does not show anything significant. 

The XRT began observing the field at 00:52:27.1 UT, 138.1 seconds after
the BAT trigger. Using promptly downlinked data we find a fading,
uncatalogued X-ray source located at RA, Dec 42.33146, 9.80665 which is
equivalent to:
   RA(J2000)  = 02h 49m 19.55s
   Dec(J2000) = +09d 48' 23.9"
with an uncertainty of 3.8 arcseconds (radius, 90% containment). This
location is 83 arcseconds from the BAT onboard position, within the BAT
error circle. This position may be improved as more data are received;
the latest position is available at http://www.swift.ac.uk/sper. 

A power-law fit to a spectrum formed from promptly downlinked event
data gives a column density consistent with the Galactic value of 1.85
x 10^21 cm^-2 (Willingale et al. 2013). 

UVOT took a finding chart exposure of 150 seconds with the White filter
starting 142 seconds after the BAT trigger. No credible afterglow candidate has
been found in the initial data products. The 2.7'x2.7' sub-image covers 100% of
the XRT error circle. The typical 3-sigma upper limit has been about 19.6 mag. 
The 8'x8' region for the list of sources generated on-board covers 100% of the
XRT error circle. The list of sources is typically complete to about 18 mag. No
correction has been made for the expected extinction corresponding to E(B-V) of
0.22. 

Burst Advocate for this burst is T. N. Ukwatta (tilan.ukwatta AT gmail.com). 
Please contact the BA by email if you require additional information
regarding Swift followup of this burst. In extremely urgent cases, after
trying the Burst Advocate, you can contact the Swift PI by phone (see
Swift TOO web site for information: http://www.swift.psu.edu/too.html.)