{
  "bibcode": "2008GCN..8711....1P",
  "body": "D. A. Perley, J. S. Bloom (UC Berkeley), J. Kalirai (STSCI), R. \nStrickler, E. Ramirez-Ruiz (UCSC), and A. A. Miller (UCB) report:\n\nWe began a series of deep optical imaging exposures on the field of GRB \n081221 (Hoversten et al., GCN 8687) using the Keck I telescope (+LRIS) \nstarting at 2008-12-23 at 5:06 UT.  We acquired 10x330s in g-band and \n10x300s in I-band (simultaneously using the 560 dichroic).\n\nA extended source coincident with the Gemini (Tanvir et al., GCN 8698) \nand Swift XRT (GCN 8690) afterglow positions is clearly detected in our \ng-band stack, which we tentatively identify as the host galaxy.  The \nmagnitude within a 1.0\" aperture of this object is approximately B~25.4 \n(calibrated relative to the USNO star at RA=15.797098, dec=-24.412259, \nB2=19.59).  It is only marginally detected in the I-band imaging, with \nan estimated magnitude of I~24.5, though photometry in this band is \ncomplicated by blending with a nearby object.\n\nThe detection of a host galaxy would be consistent with a low-redshift \norigin (GCN 8698).  Within the significant uncertainties of the \nphotometric calibration the color of the galaxy appears typical of \nnormal GRB hosts.  Further analysis is planned.\n\nAn image of the field is posted to:\nhttp://lyra.berkeley.edu/~dperley/081221/081221hostkeck.png",
  "circularId": 8711,
  "createdOn": 1230031427000,
  "email": "dperley@astro.berkeley.edu",
  "subject": "GRB 081221: Probable host galaxy in Keck imaging",
  "submitter": "Daniel Perley at U.C. Berkeley  <dperley@astro.berkeley.edu>",
  "eventId": "GRB 081221"
}