[vsnet-grb-info 2516] GRB051215 - SDSS pre-burst observations

[GCN Circulars]

TITLE:   GCN GRB OBSERVATION REPORT
NUMBER:  4353
SUBJECT: GRB051215 - SDSS pre-burst observations
DATE:    05/12/15 03:09:25 GMT
FROM:    Richard J. Cool at U.of AZ/Steward Obs  <rcool at as.arizona.edu>

Richard J. Cool (Arizona), Daniel J. Eisenstein (Arizona), David
W. Hogg (NYU), and Michael R. Blanton (NYU) report on behalf of
the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Collaboration:

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) imaged the field of burst
GRB051215 prior to the burst.  As these data should be useful
as a pre-burst comparison and for calibrating photometry, we are
supplying the images and photometry measurements for this GRB field
to the community.

Data from the SDSS, including 5 FITS images, 3 JPGS, and
3 files of photometry and astrometry, are being placed at
http://mizar.as.arizona.edu/~grb/public/GRB051215

We supply FITS images in each of the 5 SDSS bands of a 8'x8' region
centered on the GRB position (ra=163.139 (10:52:33.4), dec=38.6260
(38:37:33.6); GCN 4352), as well as 3 gri color-composite JPGs (with
different stretches). The units in the FITS images are nanomaggies
per pixel.  A pixel is 0.396 arcsec on a side. A nanomaggie is
a flux-density unit equal to 10^-9 of a magnitude 0 source or,
to the extent that SDSS is an AB system, 3.631e-6 Jy.  The FITS
images have WCS astrometric information.

In the file GRB051215_sdss.calstar.dat, we report photometry
and astrometry of 179 bright stars (r<20.5) within 15' of the
burst location.  The magnitudes presented in this file are asinh
magnitudes as are standard in the SDSS (Lupton 1999, AJ, 118,
1406). Beware that some of these stars are not well-detected in
the u-band; use the errors and object flags to monitor data quality.

In the files GRB051215_sdss.objects_flux.dat and
GRB051215_sdss.objects_magnitudes.dat, we report photometry
of 1240 objects detected within 6' of the GRB position.
We have removed saturated objects and objects with model
magnitudes fainter than 23.0 in the r-band.  The fluxes listed
in GRB051215_sdss.objects_flux.dat are in nanomaggies while the
magnitudes listed in GRB051215_sdss.objects_magnitudes.dat are
asinh magnitudes.

All quantities reported are standard SDSS photometry, meaning that
they are very close to AB zeropoints and magnitudes are quoted
in asinh magnitudes.  Photometric zeropoints are known to about
2% rms.  None of the photometry is corrected for dust extinction.
The Schlegel, Finkbeiner, and Davis (1998) predictions for this
region are A_U=0.081 mag, A_g=0.059 mag, A_r = 0.043 mag, A_i=0.033
mag, and A_z=0.023 mag.

The file GRB051215_sdss.spectro.dat contains a list of the 8 objects
with SDSS spectroscopy within 6 arcminutes of the GRB position.
In addition to the redshift and 1-sigma error for each object,
this file also lists the object spectroscopic classification.

Among the spectra, there are 4 galaxies at the same redshift z=0.145.
Most likely, this is the redshift of the cluster noted in Ofek and Gal-Yam
(GCN 4351).  This value is somewhat higher than photometric redshift
estimate of z=0.09 in Gal et al. (2003, AJ, 125, 2064), although there
are also 2 galaxies near that redshift.

SDSS astrometry is generally better than 0.1 arcsecond per
coordinate.  Users requiring high precision astrometry should take
note that the SDSS astrometric system can differ from other systems
such as those used in other notices; we have not checked the offsets
in this region.

See the SDSS DR4 documentation for more details:
http://www.sdss.org/dr4

These data have been reduced using a slightly different pipeline
than that used for SDSS public data releases.  We cannot guarantee
that the values here will exactly match those in the data release
in which these data are included.  In particular, we expect the
photometric calibrations to differ by of order 0.01 mag.

This note may be cited, but please also cite the SDSS data release
paper, Abazajian et al.  (AJ, 129, 1755, 2005), when using the data
or referring to the technical documentation.