[vsnet-grb-info 5451] GRB 071122: P60 Optical Afterglow Candidate

[GCN Circulars]

TITLE:   GCN CIRCULAR
NUMBER:  7123
SUBJECT: GRB 071122: P60 Optical Afterglow Candidate
DATE:    07/11/22 03:29:24 GMT
FROM:    S. Bradley Cenko at Caltech  <cenko at srl.caltech.edu>

S. B. Cenko (Caltech), D. B. Fox (Penn State), and Eran Ofek (Caltech)
report on behalf of a larger collaboration:

We have imaged the field of GRB071122 (Stamatikos et al., GCN 7121) with
the automated Palomar 60-inch telescope.  Observations began at
approximately 01:41 UT 22 November (~ 18 min after the burst).  Just
outside the XRT error circle, we detect a stationary, faint point source
not present in the Digital Sky Survey images of the field at coordinates
(J2000.0):

	RA: 18:26:25.34
 	Dec: +47:04:37.2

Using nearby USNO-B stars for photometric calibration, the object appears
to increase in brightness from I ~ 20.2 (01:54 UT) to I ~ 19.8 (02:33 UT).
We therefore consider it likely this is the optical afterglow of
GRB071122.

Further observations to confirm the variable nature of this source are
encouraged.