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GCN Circular 21692

Subject
LIGO/Virgo G297595: Gemini and VLT observations by GLGW Hunters
Date
2017-08-25T14:18:20Z (8 years ago)
From
Graham P Smith at U of Birmingham <gps@star.sr.bham.ac.uk>
G. P. Smith (Birmingham), M. Jauzac (Durham), M. Bianconi (Birmingham), 
J. Richard (Lyon), C. P. L. Berry (Birmingham), W. M. Farr (Birmingham), 
R. Massey (Durham), A. Robertson (Durham), K. Sharon (Michigan), A. 
Vecchio (Birmingham), J. Veitch (Glasgow)

The Gravitationally-lensed Gravitational Wave Hunters collaboration 
report observations of strong-lensing galaxy clusters located within the 
sky localisation of the LIGO/Virgo trigger G297595 (LVC GCN Circ. 21474).

Following Smith et al. (arXiv:1707.03412) we searched the initial 
(August 14th) and updated (August 16th) skymaps for strong-lensing 
galaxy clusters that lie within the 90% credible sky localisation.

Abell 3084 was the closest strong-lensing galaxy cluster to the peak 
probability in the initial skymap.  We observed this cluster through the 
i-band filter with GMOS on Gemini-South on the nights of August 14, 16, 
17, 20, 21, and with MUSE on VLT on the nights of August 16, and 18. 
GMOS spans a 5.5x5.5 arcminute field of view, and MUSE spans a 1x1 
arcminute field of view with a wavelength range of 4650-9300 Angstroms.

SMACSJ0304.3-4401 was the closest strong-lensing galaxy cluster to the 
peak probability in the updated skymap.  We observed this cluster 
through the i-band filter with GMOS on Gemini-South on the nights of 
August 17 and 20.

Analysis of these data is ongoing.  Colleagues with complementary data 
are welcome to contact us with a view to collaboration.

We thank the staff at ESO and Gemini for their outstanding support of 
our observing programmes.
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