TITLE:   GCN CIRCULAR
NUMBER:  35743
SUBJECT: GRB240218A: VLT/X-shooter upper limits
DATE:    24/02/18 03:49:19 GMT
FROM:    Daniele B. Malesani at IMAPP / Radboud University <d.malesani@astro.ru.nl>

D. B Malesani (DAWN/NBI and Radboud Univ.) and E. Le Floch (CEA) report on behalf of the Stargate collaboration:

We observed the field of GRB 240218A (Page et al., GCN 35742) using the ESO VLT UT3 with the X-shooter acquisition camera. A short sequence of imaging was secured in the r, g, and z bands. No afterglow is detected consistent with the position reported by XRT (https://www.swift.ac.uk/xrt_positions/), with the following upper limits:

r band: r > 23.0 (AB) on Feb 18.124 UT (1.00 hr after the GRB);
z band: z > 21.5 (AB) on Feb 18.127 UT (1.07 hr after the GRB).

We acknowledge excellent support from the VLT staff in Paranal, in particular Jonathan Smoker, Thomas Szeifert, and Rodrigo Romero.