GRB 261028B
GCN Circular 46074
Subject
GRB 261028B / MAXI J1609-487: MAXI GSC detection
Date
2026-10-29T02:33:20Z (4 days ago)
From
Yuta Kawakubo at Aoyama Gakuin University <kawakubo@phys.aoyama.ac.jp>
Via
Web form
S. Ogawa (TUS), M. Serino, Y. Kawakubo (AGU),
H. Negoro, M. Nakajima, K. Saito, T. Yokoyama, M. Wada (Nihon U.),
T. Mihara, A. Aoyama, M. Ota, T. Tamagawa, N. Kawai, M. Matsuoka (RIKEN),
T. Sakamoto, S. Sugita, H. Hiramatsu, T. Kato, A. Yoshida (AGU),
Y. Tsuboi, Y. Ishihara, H. Ogaki (Chuo U.),
M. Shidatsu, C. Kang, M. Uenishi, T. Usuki, S. Yatsuzuka, H. Aoe (Ehime U.),
I. Takahashi, Y. Yatsu (Science Tokyo),
S. Nakahira, S. Ueno, H. Tomida, M. Kurihara (JAXA),
Y. Ueda, K. Fujiwara, S. Kobayashi (Kyoto U.),
M. Yamauchi, M. Nishio, C. Hiraizumi (Miyazaki U.),
K. Yamaoka (Nagoya U.),
M. Sugizaki (Kanazawa U.),
W. Iwakiri (Chiba U.),
T. Kawamuro (Osaka U.),
S. Yamada (Tohoku U),
report on behalf of the MAXI team:
The MAXI/GSC nova alert system triggered a bright uncatalogued X-ray transient source at 16:32:33 UT on 28 October 2026.
The source was detected in two transit scans at 16:32 UT and 18:05 UT on October 28,
with X-ray fluxes of 382 +- 42 mCrab and 531 +- 49 mCrab (4.0-10.0keV, 1 sigma error), respectively.
We obtain the source position at
(242.237 deg, -48.765 deg) = (16 08 56, -48 45 54) (J2000)
with a circular statistical error region of radius 0.12 deg at the 90% confidence level.
There is an additional systematic uncertainty of 0.1 deg (90% containment radius).
There was no significant excess flux in the previous transit at 14:59 UT
and in the transit at 19:38 UT with an upper limit of 20 mCrab for each.
We tentatively name the source MAXI J1609-487 because the position of the source is
close to the galactic plane and the behavior of the source is different from a typical GRB.
This report will also be cross-posted to The Astronomer's Telegram (ATel).