GCN Circular 7695
Subject
GRB 080503: Fading in continued Gemini imaging
Date
2008-05-07T18:31:25Z (16 years ago)
From
Daniel Perley at U.C. Berkeley <dperley@astro.berkeley.edu>
D. A. Perley, J. S. Bloom, and W. Li (UC Berkeley), on behalf of a
larger collaboration, report:
We have continued to monitor the optical transient (Perley et al., GCN
7678) associated with GRB 080503 (Mao et al., GCN 7665) using Gemini-N
(+GMOS) with additional exposures in r-band nightly since the event.
The optical counterpart remains detected in all images to date (through
2008-05-07 UT) and is significantly, but slowly, fading. This confirms
the lack of further rebrightening (see also Perley et al., GCN 7680) and
further distinguishes the behavior of the transient from ordinary long-
and short-burst afterglows. Alternatively, a faint host galaxy could be
contributing to the later exposures somewhat; further follow-up may help
resolve this ambiguity.