EP251220a
GCN Circular 43223
Subject
EP251220a: 3.6m DOT optical afterglow detection
Date
2025-12-23T19:45:40Z (5 days ago)
From
ANSHIKA GUPTA at ARIES <anshika05180@gmail.com>
Via
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Anshika Gupta, Kuntal Misra, Divyanshu Janghel, Debalina Kar, Dhruv Jain, and Pankaj Pawar (ARIES) report:
We observed the field of EP251220a detected by EP/WXT (Liu et al. 2025; GCN 43162) with the 3.6m Devasthal Optical Telescope (DOT), located at the Devasthal Observatory of the Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES), India. The observations were started on 2025-12-21 at 17:13:18 UT, i.e., ~1.36 days after the EP/WXT trigger. We have taken multiple frames with an exposure time of 300s in the r filter. We stacked the images after the alignment. We detect a optical counterpart in our stacked image within the error box of COLIBRÍ telescope (Sánchez Álvarez et al. 2025; GCN 43167). We obtain the following preliminary magnitude in the stacked image:
Date Start_UT T_start-T0 (days) Filter Exp time (s) Magnitude
==================================================================
2025-12-21 17:13:18 ~1.36 r 300s*8 21.64 +/-0.02
Our detection is consistent with Lipunov et al. 2025 (GCN 43163); Sánchez Álvarez et al. 2025 (GCN 43167); Kumar et al. 2025 (GCN 43169); Rakotondrainibe et al. 2025 (GCN 43170); Busmann et al. 2025 (GCN 43181); van Hoof et al. 2025 (GCN 43182); An et al. 2025 (GCN 43184); Passaleva et al. 2025 (GCN 43185); Volnova et al. 2025 (GCN 43221).
The magnitude is not corrected for the Galactic extinction in the direction of the burst.
Photometric calibration is performed using the standard stars from the PanSTARRS DR1 catalog.
GCN Circular 43221
Subject
EP251220a: CrAO ZTSh optical observations
Date
2025-12-23T18:19:15Z (5 days ago)
From
Alina Volnova at IKI RAS <alinusss@gmail.com>
Via
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A. A. Volnova (IKI), V. V. Rumyantsev (CrAO), A. S. Pozanenko (IKI), N. S. Pankov (HSE, IKI) report on behalf of IKI-GRB-FuN:
We observed the field of the fast X-ray transient EP251220a detected by EP/WXT (Liu et al., GCN 43162) with the ZTSh 2.6m telescope of CrAO taking several 120-second frames in R-band. The observations started on Dec. 22 at UT 20:32:36, i.e., ~ 2.5 days after the EP/WXT trigger. In the stacked image we detect the optical counterpart reported previously (Sánchez Álvarez et al., GCN 43167; Kumar et al., GCN 43169; Rakotondrainibe et al., GCN 43170; Busmann et al., GCN 43181; van Hoof et al., GCN 43182; An et al., GCN 43184; Passaleva et al., GCN 43185). Preliminary photometry and observational details are the following:
Date UT start t-T0 Exp. Filter Obj. Err. UL Site/Telescope
(mid,days) (n*s) (3sigma)
2025-12-22 20:32:36 2.51642 17*120 R 22.55 0.20 22.9 CrAO/ZTSh
The photometry is based on several nearby stars from the USNO-B1 catalogue (R2 magnitudes) and is not corrected for the Galactic extinction.
GCN Circular 43185
Subject
EP251220a: PRIME upper limit
Date
2025-12-22T16:55:31Z (6 days ago)
From
N. Passaleva at Sapienza University of Rome <niccolo.passaleva@uniroma1.it>
Via
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N. Passaleva (U Rome), O. Guiffreda (UMD), M. El Kabir (U Rome), J. Durbak (UMD), E. Troja (U Rome), A. S. Kutyrev (NASA/GSFC), S. B. Cenko (NASA/GSFC)
We observed the field of the optical counterpart (Sánchez Álvarez et al. GCN 43167) of the fast X-ray transient EP251220a (Liu et al., GCN 43162) in J filter with PRIME. Observations started ~35h after the trigger.
Using Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) nearby stars for preliminary calibration we do not detect any uncatalogued source down to J>20.5 AB (3-sigma) not corrected for galactic extinction at the position of the candidate reported by Sánchez Álvarez et al. (GCN 43167), Kumar et al. (GCN 43169), Busmann et al. (GCN 43181), van Hoof et al. (GCN 43182), An et al. (GCN 43184).
PRIME is a 1.8m telescope with 1.56 square degree FOV (0.5 arcsec/pixel) located in Sutherland, South Africa at the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO) (Kutyrev et al. 2023, Yama et al. 2023, Durbak et al. 2024).
We thank the Osaka University observers at PRIME and the staff at SAAO for their support with these observations.
GCN Circular 43184
Subject
EP251220a: VLT/FORS2 spectroscopic redshift z = 2.375
Date
2025-12-22T16:47:08Z (6 days ago)
From
Aishwarya L Thakur at INAF-IAPS, Rome <aishth@outlook.com>
Via
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J. An (NAOC), A. Saccardi (CEA/Irfu), R. A. J. Eyles-Ferris (U. Leicester), D. B. Malesani (DAWN/NBI and Radboud), M. Ferro (INAF-OABr), A. P. C. van Hoof (Radboud), A. L. Thakur (INAF-IAPS), D. Xu (NAOC), report on behalf of the Stargate collaboration:
We observed the optical counterpart of EP251220a (Sánchez Álvarez et al., GCN 43167; Rakotondrainibe et al., GCN 43170; Busmann et al., GCN 43181; van Hoof et al., GCN 43182) detected by the Einstein Probe (Liu et al., GCN 43162) using the ESO VLT UT1 (Antu) equipped with the FORS2 spectrograph. Our observation started at 01:02:04 UT on 2025 December 22 (40.6 hr after the EP trigger). A series of spectra was obtained with the 300V grism covering the range 3500-6500 AA and consisted of 4 exposures of 600 s each.
In the acquisition image (40.46 hr after trigger), we measure for the transient a magnitude r = 21.80 +- 0.05 (AB), calibrated against nearby stars from the Pan-STARRS catalogue, and not corrected for Galactic extinction. This value indicates little decay compared to the other reported optical observations.
In a preliminary reduction of the data, we identify multiple absorption features, including Lyα broad trough likely due to H I, as well as Si II, C II, and Al II, at a common redshift of 2.375, which we thus suggest to be the redshift for this transient. The COLIBRÍ redshift upper limit (Sánchez Álvarez et al., GCN 43167) is thus fully consistent with our spectroscopic measurement.
We acknowledge expert support from the ESO observing staff in Paranal, particularly Juan Carlos Olivares and Maria Jose Rain. The analysis of this spectrum was carried out with the help of the zHunter tool (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15189495).
GCN Circular 43182
Subject
EP251220a: NOT optical observations
Date
2025-12-22T14:18:06Z (6 days ago)
Edited On
2025-12-22T21:29:31Z (6 days ago)
From
Daniele Bjørn Malesani at Cosmic Dawn Center, Niels Bohr Institute <daniele.malesani@nbi.ku.dk>
Edited By
Vidushi Sharma at NASA GSFC/UMBC <vidushi.sharma@nasa.gov> on behalf of Daniele Bjørn Malesani at Cosmic Dawn Center, Niels Bohr Institute <daniele.malesani@nbi.ku.dk>
Via
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A. P. C. van Hoof (Radboud), G. Corcoran (UCD), J. An (NAOC), R. A. J. Eyles-Ferris (U. Leicester), D. B. Malesani (DAWN/NBI and Radboud), D. Xu (NAOC), J. Sanchez-Sierras (Radboud), P. G. Jonker (Radboud), A. Martin-Carrillo (UCD), A. Kadela (NOT and NBI), report on behalf of a larger collaboration:
We observed the optical counterpart (Sánchez Álvarez et al., GCN 43167; Kumar et al., GCN 43169; Rakotondrainibe et al., GCN 43170; Busmann et al., GCN 43181) of EP251220a (Liu et al., GCNs 43162