GCN Circular 21682
Subject
LIGO/Virgo G298048: Gemini-South Imaging and Spectroscopy
Event
Date
2017-08-24T19:31:19Z (8 years ago)
From
Eleonora Troja at GSFC/Swift <nora.gsfc@gmail.com>
E. Troja (UMD/GSFC), A. Watson (UNAM), S. Covino (INAF), W. H. Lee (UNAM),
N. Butler (ASU), J. Becerra-Gonzalez (UMD/GSFC), A. Lien (UMBC),
T. Sakamoto (AGU), and P. D'Avanzo (INAF)
and
L. P. Singer (NASA/GSFC), C. Fremling (Caltech), and M. M. Kasliwal
(Caltech) on behalf of the GROWTH (Global Relay of Observatories
Watching Transients Happen) collaboration report:
We observed the field of the transient SSS17a in NGC 4993 (Coulter
et al. 2017; GCN 21529) with the Flamingos-2 (F2) instrument and
the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS) mounted on the Gemini-
South 8-m telescope starting on 2017 Aug 20.98 UT, ~3.5 days after
LIGO/Virgo trigger G298048 (LVC GCN Circ. 21509, 21513). Imaging
observations were carried out in the g, r, i, z, J, H and K filters.
The source is detected in all bands with a preliminary magnitude J~17.2.
We also obtained a pair of 1200s GMOS spectra with the R400 and the B600
gratings. We do not detect any significant emission or absorption lines
over the red featureless continuum.
We thank the Gemini staff, particularly Hwihyun Kim, Ricardo Salinas,
and Laura Ferrarese for their support of these operations.