[vsnet-grb-info 7702] GRB 090426: inspection of SDSS images

[GCN Circulars]

TITLE:   GCN CIRCULAR
NUMBER:  9256
SUBJECT: GRB 090426: inspection of SDSS images
DATE:    09/04/26 15:42:35 GMT
FROM:    Paolo D'Avanzo at INAF-OAB  <paolo.davanzo at brera.inaf.it>

P. D'Avanzo (INAF-OAB/Univ. Bicocca), E. Palazzi (IASF-Bo), C. C. Thoene 
(INAF-OAB), E. Maiorano (IASF-Bo), G. Chincarini (Univ. Bicocca). L.A. 
Antonelli, S. Piranomonte (INAF-OAR) report, on behalf of the CIBO 
collaboration:

Inspection of archival Sloan Digital Sky Survey images reveals no object 
near the position of the optical afterglow (Cummings et al GCN 9254, Xin 
et GCN 9255) of GRB 090426 down to the SDSS magnitude limits. The 
nearest object is a faint (and apparently extended) source located at 
the following position (J2000) :

RA = 12:36:19.49
DEC = +32:59:05.5

which is about 18" away from the optical afterglow position provided by 
Cummings et al (GCN 9254). According to the SDSS this object have r = 
19.71 ± 0.04 and a photo-z of 0.3. At this redshift the angular 
separation corresponds to about 80 kpc. Given the large offsets, this 
object is unlikely to be related with GRB 090426.