GRB 020317

E.Pavlenko  and V.Rumyantsev (on behalf of Crimean Observatory and Space
Research Institute (Moscow) GRB follow-up teams) report:

"We have imaged of the error box for GRB 020317 / HETE #1959 
with the 0.38-m Cassegrain telescope of Crimean Astrophysical Observatory
(field 7x10 arcminutes). 

5 x 300 sec R-band images partially covering the error box of the possible optical
afterglow of GRB 020317 were obtained  between March 17 UT 20:14:19 and
20:45:31, i.e., in 2 - 2.5 hrs after burst. The limiting magnitude was 18.5 (R). We
found a faint object (R=18.2+/-0.3 mag, UT 20:37:35) located at the 0.9 arc min to 
the East from  the star R=16.9 RA(J2000) = 10 24 27.99  Dec(J2000)= +12 36 05.6 
(USNO-A2.0) which is not in DSS. The bad weather conditions did not allow to complete 
the covering of error box and obtain more observation of this faint object."

This message is quotable.

Martin Jelinek, Martin Nekola, Petr Kubanek,
Ivana Stoklasova, Rene Hudec and the BART
team, Astronomical Institute of the Academy of
Sciences of the Czech Republic, Ondrejov, report:

Wide Field Camera of the BART robotic telescope (FOV
4.8 deg) observed the entire error box of GRB020317.

Following the GRB alert at March 17.760780 UT, the
device has taken a series of images of the area defined
by HETE for trigger 1959.

Exposures started at March 17.8009 (57.8 min after the
burst and 5.2 min after the GCN notice was generated)
and ended at  March 18.1715. Total exposure time is 252
minutes.

Poor weather conditions allowed an unfiltered single image
wide field limiting magnitude 14. We have no positive
OT detections within this range, except for one
suspicious object on the noise level detected on a sum of
first 10 images (lim mag 15.5) at coordinates

        RA 10:23:25     Dec +12:51:36   J2000

Position error is about 17 arcseconds. Nature and
likelihood of reality of the detection are uncertain.

GRB020317 (=H1959): Localization by HETE of a Low Fluence GRB 
Exhibiting Strong Spectral Evolution

G. Ricker, J-L Atteia, N. Kawai, D. Lamb, and S. Woosley on behalf of 
the HETE Science Team;

J. Villasenor, R. Vanderspek, G. Crew, J. Doty, G. Monnelly, N. 
Butler, T. Cline, J.G. Jernigan, A. Levine, F. Martel, E. Morgan, G. 
Prigozhin, J. Braga, R. Manchanda, and G. Pizzichini, on behalf of 
the HETE Operations and HETE Optical-SXC Teams;

M. Matsuoka, Y. Shirasaki, T. Tamagawa, K. Torii, T. Sakamoto, A. 
Yoshida, E. Fenimore, M. Galassi, T. Tavenner, T. Donaghy, and C. 
Graziani, on behalf of the HETE WXM Team;

M. Boer, J-F Olive, J-P Dezalay, and K. Hurley on behalf of the HETE 
FREGATE Team;

write:

At 18:15:31.42 UTC (65731.42 s UT) on 17 March 2002, the HETE FREGATE 
and WXM instruments detected a low fluence GRB that exhibited 
unusually strong spectral evolution. The burst, H1959, was promptly 
reported as a GCN Alert Notice within 34 seconds of the detection 
time. Position resolution and penetration depth in the WXM detectors 
depend on photon energy. The extreme hard-to-soft spectral evolution 
of this burst, quite different from that of a "typical" burst, caused 
an automatic quality check on the location result to fail, so the 
flight location was not transmitted to the GCN. Accurate localization 
of the burst required a "special case" ground-based analysis. A 
preliminary localization was reported as a GCN Position Notice at 53 
min after the burst, and successive refinements were reported as GCN 
Position Notices at 6 hours and 9 hours after the burst. The ground 
analysis produced a location which can be expressed as a circle with 
a 90% confidence radius of 18 arcminutes centered at:

RA = 10h 23m 21s, Dec = +12d 44' 38" (J2000)

This location was reported in a GCN Alert Notice issued at 18 Mar 
2002 03:09:08 UT.

In the FREGATE 8-40 keV band, H1959 had a duration of less than 10 
seconds, with the majority of the counts occurring in an initial hard 
spike with duration ~2s.  A total of 537 net counts were detected, 
corresponding to a fluence of ~1 x 10-7 ergs cm-2 . The peak flux 
averaged over 0.2s was ~7 x 10-8 ergs cm-2 s-1 (ie 2.5 x Crab flux).

Further information (including a light curve) for GRB020317 is 
provided at the following URL:

http://space.mit.edu/HETE/Bursts/

This message is citable.

A. Tomita(1), T.T. Takeuchi(2), S. Furukawa(1), K. Nishibata(1),
 M. Yamamoto(1)
 (1) Wakayama Univ.
 (2) Natl. Astron. Obs. Japan

 Y. Urata, S. Nishiura, Y. Nakata, T. Miyata, T. Aoki, T. Soyano,
 K. Tarusawa, H. Mito, A. Yoshida, N. Kawai, T. Tamagawa
   on behalf of the KISO GRB Team:

 We have observed the field of GRB020317 (= H1959 ) with the KISO
observatory 1.05m schmidt telescope at 2002 March 18. All images
(R-band) were taken with the 2kx2k CCD camera ( 50' x 50' field of
view). These images cover with the whole HETE-2 error circle reported
in GCN Notice (HETE Ground Analysis seq_num: 5).

Our data;
Date  Time (UT)     Exposure   Limiting mag.(R, SN=3)  seeing size
03-18 12:43 - 12:58 300sec x 3 20.8  5.0"
03-18 17:19 - 17:55 300sec x 6 18.1  7.5" (Bad weather condition)

# Limiting magnitude was estimated by comparison with
# U0975_06481732(10:23:25,+12:42:05,R(USNO)=16.1).

 We detected six point sources which are not in DSS-2 image. Two
sources were identified with minor planets using Minor Planet Checker
: http://scully.harvard.edu/~cgi/CheckMP. Four souces are not
identified. Because of the bad weather condition, we cannot find
their time variability.

Coordinates of these sources are:

   RA(J2000) DEC(J2000) mag.(R)
1  10:24:25  +12:51:55  18.0   <= minorr planet
2  10:24:09  +12:48:33  17.3   <= minorr planet
3  10:23:10  +12:33:17  19.6
4  10:22:40  +12:32:02  18.5
5  10:22:39  +12:44:02  19.0
6  10:22:20  +12:36:55  19.1

Astrometric uncertainties are 1 aresec, and photmetric uncertainties
are 0.1 mag. for 19 mag. objects.

This message may be cited.

[GCN OPS NOTE:  This message was received 8 hours ago, but due to my mistake
in the list, it as delayed.]

A. Guarnieri, S. Bernabei, C. Bartolini, A. Piccioni (Bologna 
University and Bologna Astronomical Observatory), C. Zurita 
(Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias) and G. Pizzichini (IASF-CNR, 
Sezione di Bologna) report: 

On 2002 March 18.91 UT we started the observation of a central 
portion of the error box of GRB 020317 with the 152 cm telescope in 
Loiano, (R band, 2x300 sec and 2x600 sec exposure, V band, 1x300 sec).
Coverage of the entire error box was prevented by weather worsening.
In our frames there is no new source brighter than the limit of 
PossII, with the exception of two objects of about m=18.7, and m=17.0 
we detected in the images centered at RA=10h 24m 10s, 
Dec=+12d 47' 08" (equinox 2002), size of the field 12'.5 x 12'.5; 
we tentatively identify these objects as the asteroids 2002 BV18 and 
1999 RW167 respectively. 
In an R image taken on March 19.85 UT (1200 sec exposure under poor 
sky conditions again, field center at RA=10h 23m 38sec, 
Dec=+12d 53' 20") we cannot confirm the presence of the suspicious 
object indicated by Jelinek et al in GCN 1278
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 , but we recognized 
there 1999 RW167. 
Our images can be retrieved by sftp at 'ermione.bo.astro.it', 
username 'publicGRB', password 'GRB_bo'.

This message may be cited.

K.S. Baliyan and J.K. Jain on behalf of GRB group, MIRO-PRL, Ahmedabad,
   India) report:

   Follow up observations of the grb020317 were made in the near infrared
   bands using 4'x4' FOV NICMOS-3 array mounted on the 1.2 m IR telescope
   at Mt Abu IR Observatory (MIRO) operated by the Physical Research
   Laboratory, Ahmedabad- India.

   Several sets of images were taken on March 19 beginning 16:30UT
   & centered around
   (J2000) 10 24 28  +12 36 05.6    and
   (J2000) 10 23 21  +12 44 38
   locations with following exposure times in J, H and K' bands:
	J  2x100 secs,  9x60 secs
        H  11x20 secs
        K' 41x2  secs

   under not-so-good weather conditions.  A preliminary look at images
   do not show any unknown object. The detailed data analysis is in progress
   and final results will be reported later.

   This message may be cited.

A. Henden (USRA/USNO) reports on behalf of the USNO GRB team:

We have acquired BVRcIc all-sky photometry for
an 11x11 arcmin field centered at the HETE coordinates
for GRB020317 (Ricker et al. GCN 1280
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 ) with the USNOFS
1.0-m telescope on one marginally photometric night.  Stars
brighter than V=13.5 are saturated and should be used with care.
We have placed the photometric data on our anonymous ftp site:
ftp://ftp.nofs.navy.mil/pub/outgoing/aah/grb/grb020317.dat
The astrometry in this file is based on linear plate solutions
with respect to USNO-A2.0.  The internal errors are less than 100mas.

Since no evidence of an optical afterglow has been presented
through the GCN, we do not intend to revisit this field.