[vsnet-grb-info 18871] GRB 161219B: SALT observations

[GCN Circulars]

TITLE:   GCN CIRCULAR
NUMBER:  20322
SUBJECT: GRB 161219B:  SALT observations
DATE:    16/12/21 17:29:49 GMT
FROM:    Soebur Razzaque at U of Johannesburg  <srazzaque at uj.ac.za>

D.A.H. Buckley (SAAO/SALT), A. Hamanowicz (Warsaw U.), A. Martin-Carrillo (UCD), S. Razzaque (U. Johannesburg), T. Garrigoux (North-West U.), L. Hanlon (UCD), M. M. Kotze (SAAO/SALT) and R. Kuhn (SAAO/SALT) report on behalf of a larger collaboration.

We observed the Swift GRB 161219B (D’Ai et al. GCN 20296) on December 20 using the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) in Sutherland, South Africa, 24.73 h after the Swift GRB trigger. A 20 s r'-band image was obtained using SALTICAM at 19:32:30 UTC, just prior to the commencement of the spectroscopy, and the optical counterpart reported by D'Ai et al. (GCN 20296), Kruehler et al. (GCN 20299), Guidorzi et al. (GCN 20300), Martin-Carrillo et al. (GCN 20305), Mazaeva et a. (GCN 20309), Tanvir et al. (GCN 20321) was clearly visible in the SALT image.

>From photometry of the source and six APASS reference stars in the field, we determined the brightness to be r' = 18.94 +/- 0.06. Spectroscopy with the Robert Stobie Spectrograph (RSS) started at 19:37:39 UTC and ran until 20:27:51 UTC during which two 1500 s spectra were obtained, nominally covering the spectral region from 340 to 1000 nm at a mean resolution of R = 350. The optical spectrum was characterised by a blue continuum and was heavily contaminated by sky emission lines above 850 nm. No obvious spectral faetures were seen in the combined spectrum.
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