GRB 000301c
Near-infrared detection of the afterglow of GRB 000301c
B. Stecklum, S. Klose (Thüringer Landessternwarte Tautenburg),
O. Fischer (Universitäts-Sternwarte Jena),
C. Bailer-Jones, U. Thiele, A. Aguirre
(Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie, Heidelberg),
F. J. Vrba, A. A. Henden, C. B. Luginbuhl,
B. Canzian, S. E. Levine, H. H. Guetter, J. A. Munn
(U.S. Naval Observatory, Flagstaff),
D. H. Hartmann (Clemson University, Clemson),
A. Castro-Tirado (LAEFF-INTA, Madrid, and IAA-CSIC, Granada),
J. Greiner (AIP Potsdam), and
J. Gorosabel (LAEFF-INTA, Madrid, and University of Amsterdam)
report:
The error box of the burst GRB 000301c reported by Smith et al. (GCN
568)
was imaged with the Calar Alto 3.5-m
telescope on March 3, 4:41 UT - 5:38 UT, using the
near-infrared camera Omega Cass (see
http://www.mpia-hd.mpg.de/ ). The frames
were taken in the course of a project whose goal is to measure the
degree of linear polarization of GRB afterglows.
The limiting magnitude of the
K'-band image is about K'=19 after adding all images taken at
different position angles of the wire-grid polarizer.
The potential optical transient reported by Fynbo et al. (GCN
570) is clearly detected.
Based on the assumption that the B-R colour index of
the star USNO 125_07686794 is representative for its spectral type, a
preliminary estimate of the K'-band magnitude of the GRB afterglow
of 17.4 was derived.
Figure 1: K'-band image of the optical afterglow of GRB 000301c.
Contour plots correspond to stars visible on the DSS1 sky survey.
Figure 2: Enlarged portion of Figure 1. Note that the image is slightly
rotated with respect to Fig. 1.
Any use of these data should be accompanied by a reference.
B. Stecklum, S. Klose, Thüringer Landessternwarte Tautenburg.
Last modified: March 5, 2000