TITLE:   GCN CIRCULAR
NUMBER:  840
SUBJECT: GRB 000926 : the host galaxy
DATE:    00/10/09 17:12:45 GMT
FROM:    Johan U. Fynbo at ESO,Garching  <jfynbo@eso.org>

J. P. U. Fynbo (ESO), M. I. Andersen (University of Oulu), 
J. Gorosabel (DSRI, Copenhagen),
J. Hjorth, B. L. Jensen, H. Pedersen (University of Copenhagen), 
T. Pursimo, M.T. Hanski (University of Turku),
R. Oestensen, J.-E. Solheim (University of Tromsoe) report:

"Using the ALFOSC on the 2.5m Nordic Optical Telescope we have obtained 
further R-band imaging of the Optical Transient (OT) of GRB 000926 
(GCN #801, #803, #804) on 2000 October 2.84 and 6.87 UT.

We find the following magnitudes of the OT using R = 17.06 for the 
reference star of Halpern et al. (GCN #806, #824):

Date (UT)          R
------------------------------
Oct 2.84     23.28 +- 0.13
Oct 6.87     23.87 +- 0.25

The emission at the position of the OT in the Oct 6.87 image is (although 
at low signal-to-noise ratio) significantly elongated with a position angle 
of about 90 degrees. This indicates a contribution from a galaxy, possibly 
the GRB host. The light-curve shape also indicates a flattening consistent 
with a late time decay slope of alpha=2.5+-0.15 and an underlying galaxy 
with a magnitude of about R=24. An updated light-curve based on the NOT 
points only can be found at: 
http://www.ifa.au.dk/~jfynbo/grb/grb000926/GRB000926_lc.gif"