GCN Circular 4911
Subject
GRB 060323: optical observations at TNG
Date
2006-03-24T01:41:34Z (18 years ago)
From
Daniele Malesani at SISSA-ISAS,Trieste,Italy <malesani@sissa.it>
S. Covino (INAF/OABr), D. Malesani (SISSA), L.A. Antonelli (INAF/OAR),
D. Fugazza (INAF/OABr), V. Lorenzi, G. Tessicini (INAF/TNG), report on
behalf of a larger collaboration:
We observed the field of GRB 060323 (Vetere et al., GCN 4904) with the
Italian 3.6m TNG telescope.
Observations were acquired in the V and R filters (10 min exposure). The
mean time of the R-band exposure was Mar 23.9738 UT (8.8 hr after the
GRB). We clearly detect the object reported by Kann & Stecklum (GCN 4909).
Its magnitude, using as a reference the star quoted in GCN 4909 (R=18.65),
is R=22.6. Thus, the object seems to have faded.
We note however that this candidate lies 9.6" off the center of the XRT
error box (Kennea et al., GCN 4908), which has a quoted error radius of
3.9".
We retrieved the g-, r-, and i-band frames from the publicly available
SDSS survey (Cool et al., GCN 4905). Coadding the three frames, the
afterglow candidate is clearly visible, thus casting some doubt on its
nature.
Inspection of the XRT error circle, moreover, reveals a faint, pointlike
source at the coordinates (J2000):
alpha = 11:37:45.25
delta = +49:59:07.3
Its magnitude is R~23.1 (referenced to the same comparison star). It is
also barely visible in the V-band images. We thus consider also this
object as a plausible afterglow candidate. Further observations are
encouraged.
We thank the TNG staff for their valuable support.
This message can be cited.
[GCN OPS NOTE(27mar06): Per author's request, Lorenzi and Tessicini
were added to the author list.]