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GRB 201203A

GCN Circular 28985

Subject
GRB 201203A: Swift detection of a burst
Date
2020-12-03T07:10:00Z (5 years ago)
From
Kim Page at U.of Leicester <klp5@leicester.ac.uk>
S. Dichiara (NASA/GSFC/UMCP), C. Gronwall (PSU),
S. Laha (GSFC/UMBC/CRESST), A. Y. Lien (GSFC/UMBC),
F. E. Marshall (NASA/GSFC), K. L. Page (U Leicester) and
M. H. Siegel (PSU) report on behalf of the Neil Gehrels Swift
Observatory Team:

At 06:52:27 UT, the Swift Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) triggered and
located GRB 201203A (trigger=1010946).  
Swift slewed immediately to the burst. 
The BAT on-board calculated location is 
RA, Dec 38.080, -26.538 which is 
   RA(J2000) = 02h 32m 19s
   Dec(J2000) = -26d 32' 14"
with an uncertainty of 3 arcmin (radius, 90% containment, including 
systematic uncertainty).  The BAT light curve showed a complex
structure with a duration of about 20 sec.  The peak count rate
was ~600 counts/sec (15-350 keV), at ~0 sec after the trigger. 

The XRT began observing the field at 06:54:27.2 UT, 120.0 seconds after
the BAT trigger. No source was detected in the 2.5-s promptly available
image. We are waiting for the full dataset to detect and localise the
XRT counterpart. 

UVOT took a finding chart exposure of  68 seconds with the White filter
starting 123 seconds after the BAT trigger. No credible afterglow candidate has
been found in the initial data products. The 2.7'x2.7' sub-image covers 25% of
the BAT error circle. The typical 3-sigma upper limit has been about 19.6 mag. 
The 8'x8' region for the list of sources generated on-board covers 100% of the
BAT error circle. The list of sources is typically complete to about 18 mag. No
correction has been made for the expected extinction corresponding to E(B-V) of
0.02. 

Burst Advocate for this burst is S. Dichiara (dichiara AT umd.edu). 
Please contact the BA by email if you require additional information
regarding Swift followup of this burst. In extremely urgent cases, after
trying the Burst Advocate, you can contact the Swift PI by phone (see
Swift TOO web site for information: http://www.swift.psu.edu/)

GCN Circular 28986

Subject
GRB 201203A: FRAM-Auger optical limit
Date
2020-12-03T08:09:11Z (5 years ago)
From
Martin Jelinek at Astro.Inst-AVCR,Ondrejov <martin.jelinek@asu.cas.cz>
Martin Jelinek, Jan Strobl (ASU CAS Ondrejov, CZ),
Martin Masek, Petr Janecek, Sergey Karpov, Jakub
Jurysek, Jan Ebr, Ronan Cunniffe, Petr Travnicek and
Michael Prouza (Institute of Physics, Prague, CZ)

report:

The 30 cm robotic telescope FRAM-Auger in Malargue
(Argentina) reacted robotically to the Swift/BAT alert
of GRB201203A (Dichiara et al., GCNC 28985), starting
with a series of 20 s unfiltered images at 06:54:04 UT,
i.e. 97 s post trigger.

We do not detect any new or strongly variable source at
or around the reported gamma-ray errorbox in single
frames or a combined 20 x 20 s image taken between 1.5
min and 12.5 min after the initial trigger. The
combined exposure has a limiting magnitude r'(AB) ~
17, as calibrated against the Atlas Catalogue.

GCN Circular 28987

Subject
GRB 201203A: DDOTI Observations
Date
2020-12-03T08:54:12Z (5 years ago)
From
Alan M Watson at UNAM <alan@astro.unam.mx>
Alan M. Watson (UNAM), Nat Butler (ASU), Rosa L. Becerra (UNAM), Simone Dichiara
(GSFC/UMD), Alexander Kutyrev (GSFC/UMD), William H. Lee (UNAM), Oc��lotl Lopez
(UNAM), Diego Gonzalez (UNAM), Margarita Pereyra (UNAM), Srihari Ravi (ASU), and
Eleonora Troja (GSFC/UMD) report:

We observed the field of the Swift/BAT GRB 201203A (Dichiara et al., GCN Circ.
28985) with the DDOTI wide-field imager at the Observatorio Astron��mico Nacional
on Sierra San Pedro Martir (http://ddoti.astroscu.unam.mx) from 2020-12-03
06:57 UTC to 08:31 UTC (from 5.5 to 99 minutes after the trigger).

We observed a region covering aproximately 7 degrees in RA and 10 degrees in
declination (about 70 square degrees), including the entire BAT uncertainty
region centered on 02:32:19.18 -26:32:15.0 (J2000). We obtained 4290 seconds of
exposure in the w filter at high airmass and with almost full Moon. We
calibrated our images against the APASS DR10 catalog. Our 5-sigma limiting
magnitudes is 19.9.

Compared to the USNO-B1, Pan-STARRS DR1, and APASS DR10 catalogs, we detect no
uncataloged sources to our 5-sigma limit in the BAT 90% uncertainty region. No
XRT detection is available at this moment.

We thank the staff of the Observatorio Astronomico Nacional in San Pedro Martir.

GCN Circular 28988

Subject
GRB 201203A: KAIT Optical Upper Limit
Date
2020-12-03T10:02:27Z (5 years ago)
From
Weikang Zheng at UC Berkeley <weikang@berkeley.edu>
WeiKang Zheng and Alexei V. Filippenko (UC Berkeley) report on
behalf of the KAIT GRB team:

The 0.76-m Katzman Automatic Imaging Telescope (KAIT), located at
Lick Observatory, responded to Swift GRB 201203A (Dichiara et al.,
GCN 28985) starting at 06:54:43 UT, 136 s after the burst.
Observations were performed with an automatic sequence in the
clear (roughly R), V, and I filters, and the exposure time was 20 s
per image. We do not detect any optical afterglow candidate within
the BAT position error circle (Dichiara et al., GCN 28985),
neither in single image, nor in the co-add images.
The typical limiting magnitude of our single clear image is about
18.0 mag calibrated to the USNOB1.0 catalog.
Our observation is consistent with the non-detection reported by
other groups (Jelinek et al, GCN 28986; Watson et al., GCN 28987). ���

GCN Circular 28990

Subject
GRB 201203A: Swift-XRT afterglow detection
Date
2020-12-03T15:11:51Z (5 years ago)
From
Kim Page at U.of Leicester <klp5@leicester.ac.uk>
V. D'Elia (ASDC), A. D'Ai (INAF-IASFPA), B. Sbarufatti (PSU), D.N.
Burrows (PSU), J. D. Gropp (PSU), J.P. Osborne (U. Leicester), K.L.
Page (U. Leicester), A.P. Beardmore (U. Leicester), A. Melandri
(INAF-OAB) and P.A. Evans (U. Leicester) report on behalf of the
Swift-XRT team:

Swift-XRT has observed GRB 201203A (Dichiara et al. GCN Circ. 28985),
collecting 2.8 ks of Photon Counting (PC) mode data between T0+4.7 ks
and T0+17.6 ks. 

One uncatalogued X-ray source is detected within the BAT error circle.
Using 857 s of PC mode data and 2 UVOT images, we find an enhanced XRT
position (using the XRT-UVOT alignment and matching UVOT field sources
to the USNO-B1 catalogue): RA, Dec = 38.05521, -26.51820 which is
equivalent to:

RA (J2000): 02h 32m 13.25s
Dec(J2000): -26d 31' 05.5"

with an uncertainty of 3.3 arcsec (radius, 90% confidence). This
position is 107 arcsec from the BAT position. 

The light curve can be modelled with a power-law decay with a decay
index of alpha=1.4 (+1.3, -1.1).

A spectrum formed from the PC mode data can be fitted with an absorbed
power-law with a photon spectral index of 1.9 (+0.7, -0.4). The
best-fitting absorption column is  consistent with the Galactic value
of 1.8 x 10^20 cm^-2 (Willingale et al. 2013). The counts to observed
(unabsorbed) 0.3-10 keV flux conversion factor deduced from this
spectrum  is 3.3 x 10^-11 (1.6 x 10^-11) erg cm^-2 count^-1. 

A summary of the PC-mode spectrum is thus:
Total column:	     1.8 (+/-7.3) x 10^20 cm^-2
Galactic foreground: 1.8 x 10^20 cm^-2
Excess significance: <1.6 sigma
Photon index:	     1.9 (+0.7, -0.4)

If the light curve continues to decay with a power-law decay index of
1.4, the count rate at T+24 hours will be 3.4 x 10^-4 count s^-1,
corresponding to an observed (unabsorbed) 0.3-10 keV flux of 1.1 x
10^-14 (5.5 x 10^-15) erg cm^-2 s^-1.

The results of the XRT-team automatic analysis are available at
http://www.swift.ac.uk/xrt_products/01010946.
The results of the full analysis of the XRT observations are available
at https://www.swift.ac.uk/ToO_GRBs/01010946.

This circular is an official product of the Swift-XRT team.

GCN Circular 28991

Subject
Swift GRB 201203A: Global MASTER-Net observations report
Date
2020-12-03T18:38:16Z (5 years ago)
From
Vladimir Lipunov at Moscow State U/Krylov Obs <lipunov@xray.sai.msu.ru>
V. Lipunov, E. Gorbovskoy, V.Kornilov, N.Tyurina, P.Balanutsa, A.Kuznetsov, F.Balakin, 
V.Vladimirov, D. Vlasenko, I.Gorbunov, D.Zimnukhov, V.Senik, T.Pogrosheva,
D.Kuvshinov,  D. Cheryasov
(Lomonosov Moscow State University, SAI, Physics Department),

R. Podesta, C.Lopez, F. Podesta, C.Francile 
(Observatorio Astronomico Felix Aguilar OAFA),

R. Rebolo, M. Serra 
(The Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias),

D. Buckley 
(South African Astronomical Observatory),

O.A. Gres, N.M. Budnev, O.Ershova 
(Irkutsk State University, API),

A. Tlatov, D. Dormidontov 
(Kislovodsk Solar Station of the Pulkovo Observatory),

V. Yurkov, A. Gabovich, Yu. Sergienko 
(Blagoveschensk Educational State University)




MASTER-Tavrida robotic telescope  (Global MASTER-Net: http://observ.pereplet.ru, Lipunov et al., 2010, Advances in Astronomy, vol. 2010, 30L)  located in Russia (Lomonosov MSU, SAI Crimea astronomical station) was pointed to the Swift GRB 201203A ( S. Dichiara et al., GCN 28985) errorbox  41763 sec after notice time and 41845 sec after trigger time at 2020-12-03 18:29:52 UT, with upper limit up to  17.6 mag. The observations began at zenith distance = 72 deg. The sun  altitude  is -46.7 deg. 

The galactic latitude b = -67 deg., longitude l = 217 deg.


Real time updated cover map and OT discovered available here: 
https://master.sai.msu.ru/site/master2/observ.php?id=1494824

We obtain a following upper limits.  

Tmid-T0  |          Site       |Filt.| Expt. | Limit| Comment
_________|_____________________|_____|_______|______|________

   41936 |      MASTER-Tavrida |   C |   180 | 17.6 |        
Filter C is a clear (unfiltred) band. 


The observation and reduction will continue. 
The message may be cited.

GCN Circular 28992

Subject
GRB 201203A: MITSuME Okayama optical upper limits
Date
2020-12-04T08:01:15Z (5 years ago)
From
Masafumi Niwano at Tokyo Institute of Tech <niwano@hp.phys.titech.ac.jp>
M. Niwano, R. Hosokawa, K. L. Murata, R. Adachi, F. Ogawa, N. Nakamura,
N. Ito, S. Ogata, H. Takamatsu, H. Hara, Y. Yatsu, and N. Kawai (TokyoTech)
report on behalf of the MITSuME collaboration:

We observed the field of GRB 201203A (S. Dichiara et al.,GCN Circular 
#28985) with the optical three color (g', Rc, and Ic) CCD cameras 
attached to the MITSuME 50 cm telescope of Okayama Astrophysical 
Observatory, Okayama, Japan.
The observation started at 12:02:06 UT. We did not find any new point 
sources within the Swift-XRT circle ( V. D'Elia et al., GCN Circular 
#28990) in all three bands.
We obtained the 5-sigma limits as follows.
T0+[hour]�� MID-UT�� T-EXP[sec]�� 5-sigma limits
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 

6.9�� 13:45:28.19�� 9000�� g'>17.9, Rc>18.6, Ic>17.7
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 

T0+ : Elapsed time after the burst
T-EXP: Total Exposure time

We used the PS1 catalog for flux calibration.
The magnitudes are expressed in the AB system.
The images were processed in real-time through the MITSuME GPU reduction 
pipeline
(Niwano et al., 10.1093/pasj/psaa091, arXiv:2008.11486; 
https://github.com/MNiwano/Eclaire).

GCN Circular 28993

Subject
GRB 201203A: GROWTH-India Telescope optical upper limit.
Date
2020-12-04T15:32:31Z (5 years ago)
From
Harsh Kumar at Indian Inst of Tech,Bombay <harshkosli13@gmail.com>
H. Kumar (IITB), P. Dorje (IAO), J. Stanzin (IAO), S. Joharle (Fergusson
College), K. Sharma (IITB), V. Bhalerao (IITB), G. C. Anupama (IIA), S.
Barway (IIA), report on behalf of the GROWTH-India collaboration:


We observed GRB 201203A reported by S. Dichiara et. al., (GCN 28985) with
0.7m GROWTH-India Telescope, starting at 2020-12-03T15:21:51.55 UT. We
obtained 25 images of 300 sec each in the r' filter. We did not detect any
new source within an uncertainty region of 3.3 arcseconds (radius, 90%
containment) around Swift-XRT position i.e., RA(J2000) = 02h 32m 13.25s,
Dec(J2000) = -26d 31' 05.5" (V. D'Elia et. al., GCN 28990).


We obtained the following upper limits:

------------------------------------------------------------------

 JD_Mid | T_mid-T0 (hrs) | Exposure(sec) | Filter | lim_Mag |

------------------------------------------------------------------

2459187.19431 | ~8.49 | 300*25 | r' | > 21.7 |

------------------------------------------------------------------

Magnitudes are in the AB system and are calibrated against PanSTARRs PS1
data release, (Flewelling et al., 2018).


The GROWTH India Telescope (GIT) is a 70-cm telescope with a 0.7 degree
field of view, set up by the Indian Institute of Astrophysics and the
Indian Institute of Technology Bombay with support from the Indo-US Science
and Technology Forum (IUSSTF) and the Science and Engineering Research
Board (SERB) of the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government
of India (https://sites.google.com/view/growthindia/). It is located at the
Indian Astronomical Observatory (Hanle), operated by the Indian Institute
of Astrophysics (IIA).

GCN Circular 28995

Subject
GRB 201203A: Swift-BAT refined analysis
Date
2020-12-04T23:07:12Z (5 years ago)
From
Sibasish Laha at GSFC <sibasish.laha@nasa.gov>
T. Sakamoto (AGU), S. D. Barthelmy (GSFC),
J. R. Cummings (CPI), S. Dichiara (NASA/GSFC/UMCP),
H. A. Krimm (NSF), S. Laha (GSFC/UMBC),
A. Y. Lien (GSFC/UMBC), C. B. Markwardt (GSFC),
D. M. Palmer (LANL), M. Stamatikos (OSU),
T. N. Ukwatta (LANL) (i.e. the Swift-BAT team):

Using the data set from T-239 to T+130 sec from the recent telemetry downlink,
we report further analysis of BAT GRB 201203A (trigger #1010946)
(Dichiara et al., GCN Circ. 28985).  The BAT ground-calculated position is
RA, Dec = 38.055, -26.505 deg which is
   RA(J2000)  =  02h 32m 13.1s
   Dec(J2000) = -26d 30' 19.2"
with an uncertainty of 1.9 arcmin, (radius, sys+stat, 90% containment).
The partial coding was 91%.

The BAT light curve showed a complex structure with a duration of about ~20 sec.
T90 (15-350 keV) is 12.18 +- 2.10 sec (estimated error including systematics).

The time-averaged spectrum from T-2.73 to T+12.84 sec is best fit by a simple
power-law model.  The power law index of the time-averaged spectrum is
1.78 +- 0.26.  The fluence in the 15-150 keV band is 2.9 +- 0.5 x 10^-07 erg/cm2.
The 1-sec peak photon flux measured from T+11.49 sec in the 15-150 keV band
is 0.5 +- 0.1 ph/cm2/sec.  All the quoted errors are at the 90% confidence
level.

The results of the batgrbproduct analysis are available at
http://gcn.gsfc.nasa.gov/notices_s/1010946/BA/

GCN Circular 29030

Subject
GRB 201203A: 1.3m DFOT, optical upper limits
Date
2020-12-12T13:02:59Z (4 years ago)
From
Amit Kumar at ARIES, India <amitkundu515@gmail.com>
Amit Kumar (ARIES), Rahul Gupta (ARIES), Raya Dastidar (ARIES), Dimple
(ARIES), Ankur Ghosh (ARIES), Sapna Mishra (ARIES), Amar Aryan (ARIES),
Shashi B. Pandey (ARIES), and Kuntal Misra (ARIES) report:

We observed the field of Swift discovered GRB 201203A (Dichiara et al., GCN
28985, D'Elia et al., GCN 28990) with the 1.3m Devasthal Fast Optical
Telescope (DFOT) at Devasthal observatory of Aryabhatta Research Institute
of Observational Sciences (ARIES), India. We observed a series of images
~7.774 hours after the burst in both R and I (300sx6 in each) filters
(Johnson-Cousins) covering Swift UVOT position (Sakamoto et al., GCN
28995). Preliminary photometry on the stacked images was performed and
calibrated against USNO-B1 catalog stars. We do not detect any OT candidate
(Jelinek et al., GCN 28986, Watson et al., GCN 28987, Zheng et al., 28988,
Niwano et al., GCN 28992, Kumar et al. 28993) within the enhanced XRT
position. The upper limits in the stacked images are the following:

DATE       UT (start)  Filter Exposure(sec) Frames    Upper limit (mag)
2020-12-03 14:38:54    R      300           6        21.4
2020-12-03 15:11:18    I        300           6        21.2

This circular may be cited.

GCN Circular 29032

Subject
GRB 201203A: Zeiss-1000 (Koshka observatory) optical upper limit
Date
2020-12-12T22:21:35Z (4 years ago)
From
Alexei Pozanenko at IKI, Moscow <apozanen@iki.rssi.ru>
N. Pankov (HSE),  A. Zhornichenko (KIAM),   A. Pozanenko (IKI),  A. 
Novichonok (Petrozavodsk State University, KIAM), S. Belkin (IKI), 
report  on behalf of IKI GRB FuN:

We observed the field of  GRB 201203A (Dichiara  et al., GCN 28985) with 
Zeiss-1000 telescope of Koshka observatory starting on Dec. 03 (UT) 
20:50:46. We do not detect any optical source within XRT position 
(D'Elia  et al., GCN 28990) in agreement with previous observations 
(Jelinek et al., GCN 28986, Watson et al., GCN 28987, Zheng et al., 
28988, Niwano et al., GCN 28992, Kumar et al. GCN 28993; Kumar et al. 
GCN29030)

Preliminary photometry of the field is following

Date       UT start   t-T0       Filter Exp.    OT    Err.  UL(3sigma)
                       (mid, days)        (s)

2020-12-03 20:50:46   0.58216    R      120*25   n/d  n/d   20.5


The photometry is based on the nearby USNO-B1.0 stars
USNO-B1.0_id R2
USNO_B10_0634-0041449
USNO_B10_0634-0041608
USNO_B10_0634-0041460
USNO_B10_0635-0033957

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