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GCN Circular 7264

Subject
GRB 080207: Swift detection of a burst
Date
2008-02-07T21:48:14Z (17 years ago)
From
Scott Barthelmy at NASA/GSFC <scott@lheamail.gsfc.nasa.gov>
J. L. Racusin (PSU), S. D. Barthelmy (GSFC),
W. H. Baumgartner (GSFC/UMBC), P. J. Brown (PSU),
D. N. Burrows (PSU), J. R. Cummings (NASA/UMBC),
P. A. Evans (U Leicester), S. D. Hunsberger (PSU),
J. A. Kennea (PSU), C. B. Markwardt (CRESST/GSFC/UMD),
F. E. Marshall (NASA/GSFC), P. T. O'Brien (U Leicester),
D. M. Palmer (LANL), T. Sakamoto (NASA/UMBC),
R. L. C. Starling (U Leicester), M. C. Stroh (PSU) and
T. N. Ukwatta (GSFC/GWU) report on behalf of the Swift Team:

At 21:30:21 UT, the Swift Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) triggered and
located GRB 080207 (trigger=302728).  Swift slewed immediately to the burst. 
The BAT on-board calculated location is 
RA, Dec 207.513, +7.514 which is 
   RA(J2000)  = 13h 50m 03s
   Dec(J2000) = +07d 30' 50"
with an uncertainty of 3 arcmin (radius, 90% containment, including 
systematic uncertainty).  This was an image-trigger, so the TDRSS
lightcurve show little activity. 

The XRT began observing the field at 21:32:25 UT, 124 seconds after the
BAT trigger. XRT found a bright, uncatalogued X-ray source
located at RA, Dec 207.5117, +7.5018 which is
   RA(J2000)  =  13h 50m 02.8s
   Dec(J2000) =  07d 30' 06.4"
with an uncertainty of 4.7 arcseconds (radius, 90% containment). 
This location is 44 arcseconds from the BAT on-board position,
within the BAT error circle. The initial flux in the 2.5s image
was 8.2e-09 erg/cm2/s (0.2-10 keV). 

 UVOT took a finding chart exposure of 55 seconds with the White
(160-650 nm) filter starting 140 seconds after the BAT trigger. No
afterglow candidate has been found in the initial data products. The
3 sigma upper limit at the XRT position is white > 20. No correction
has been made for the expected extinction corresponding to E(B-V) of
0.02. 

Burst Advocate for this burst is J. L. Racusin (racusin AT astro.psu.edu). 
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.)
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