TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR
NUMBER: 41976
SUBJECT: GRB 250924A: SVOM/VT optical observation
DATE: 25/09/25 03:51:53 GMT
FROM: SVOM_group <svomgroup(a)bao.ac.cn>
Y. N. Ma, L. P. Xin, Z. H. Yao, Y. L. Qiu, C. Wu, H. L. Li, X. H. Han, Y. Xu, J. Wang, P. P. Zhang, W. J. Xie, Y. J. Xiao, H. B. Cai, L. Lan, J. S. Deng, J. Y. Wei (NAOC), J. Palmerio (CEA), R. Z. Li (YNAO), D. F. Kong (GXU), report on behalf of the SVOM/VT team:
SVOM/VT performed a Target of Opportunity observation of GRB 250924A detected by Swift (Siegel et al., GCN 41959; Osborne et al., GCN 41973; Campana et al., GCN 41974; Siegel et al., GCN 41975). SVOM/VT began observing the field at 2025-09-24T11:07:35 UTC, 2.818 hours after the trigger, in the VT_B (400nm-650nm) and VT_R (650nm-1000nm) channels simultaneously.
The optical counterpart is detected in both VT_B and VT_R, the magnitudes are as follows:
mid time (h) | exposure time (s) | band | mag (AB) | mag err
-------------|-------------------|------|----------|--------
3.103 | 38*50 | VT_B | 21.15 | 0.06
3.089 | 40*50 | VT_R | 20.25 | 0.05
Our photometry was not corrected for Galactic extinction.
The position and the brightness are consistent with the previous reports (Siegel et al., GCN 41959; Becerra et al., GCN 41960; Lipunov et al., GCN 41962; Schneider et al., GCN 41963; Freeberg et al., GCN 41968; Pankov et al., GCN 41969; Zheng et al., GCN 41970; Saikia et al., GCN 41971; Mo et al., GCN 41972; Siegel et al., GCN 41975).
The Space Variable Objects Monitor (SVOM) is a China-France joint mission led by the Chinese National Space Administration (CNSA, China), National Centre for Space Studies (CNES, France) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS, China), which is dedicated to observing gamma-ray bursts and other transient phenomena in the energetic universe. VT was jointly developed by Xi'an Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics (XIOPM), CAS and National astronomical observatories (NAOC), CAS.
View this GCN Circular online at https://gcn.nasa.gov/circulars/41976.
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TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR
NUMBER: 41975
SUBJECT: GRB 250924A: Swift/UVOT Detection
DATE: 25/09/24 23:25:48 GMT
FROM: Mike Siegel at PSU/Swift MOC <mhs18(a)psu.edu>
M. H. Siegel (PSU) reports on behalf of the Swift/UVOT team:
The Swift/UVOT began settled observations of the field of GRB 250924A
193 s after the BAT trigger (Siegel et al., GCN Circ. 41959).
A source consistent with the XRT position is detected in the initial UVOT exposures.
The preliminary UVOT position is:
RA (J2000) = 03:27:29.66 = 51.87358 (deg.)
Dec (J2000) = +74:39:34.0 = 74.65945 (deg.)
with an estimated uncertainty of 0.43 arc sec. (radius, 90% confidence).
Preliminary detections and 3-sigma upper limits using the UVOT photometric system
(Breeveld et al. 2011, AIP Conf. Proc. 1358, 373) for the early exposures are:
Filter T_start(s) T_stop(s) Exp(s) Mag
white 193 342 147 17.80 +/- 0.04
v 681 1234 58 >18.4
b 606 626 19 18.75 +/- 0.30
u 351 601 246 18.03 +/- 0.08
w1 730 1110 39 >19.0
m2 1065 1085 19 >17.6
w2 656 1210 78 >19.6
The magnitudes in the table are not corrected for the Galactic extinction
due to the reddening of E(B-V) = 0.315 in the direction of the burst
(Schlegel et al. 1998).
View this GCN Circular online at https://gcn.nasa.gov/circulars/41975.
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TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR
NUMBER: 41974
SUBJECT: GRB 250924A: Swift-XRT refined Analysis
DATE: 25/09/24 21:44:35 GMT
FROM: Phil Evans at U of Leicester <pae9(a)star.le.ac.uk>
S. Campana (INAF-OAB), A. Melandri (INAF-OAR), D.N. Burrows (PSU), S.
Lanava (PSU), S. Dichiara (PSU), J.P. Osborne (U. Leicester), K.L. Page
(U. Leicester), T. Sbarrato (INAF-OAB) and P.A. Evans report on behalf
of the Swift-XRT team:
We have analysed 8.3 ks of XRT data for GRB 250924A, from 181 s to 34.9
ks after the trigger. The data comprise 80 s in Windowed Timing (WT)
mode (the first 1 s were taken while Swift was slewing) with the
remainder in Photon Counting (PC) mode.
The light curve can be modelled with an initial power-law decay with an
index of alpha=5.2 (+/-0.5), followed by a break at T+301 s to an alpha
of 1.05 (+/-0.05).
A spectrum formed from the WT mode data can be fitted with an absorbed
power-law with a photon spectral index of 4.0 (+0.4, -0.3). The
best-fitting absorption column is 5.1 (+/-0.8) x 10^21 cm^-2, in
excess of the Galactic value of 2.8 x 10^21 cm^-2 (Willingale et al.
2013). The PC mode spectrum has a photon index of 2.06 (+0.20, -0.13)
and a best-fitting absorption column consistent with the Galactic
value. The counts to observed (unabsorbed) 0.3-10 keV flux conversion
factor deduced from this spectrum is 3.6 x 10^-11 (5.4 x 10^-11) erg
cm^-2 count^-1.
A summary of the PC-mode spectrum is thus:
Total column: 2.8 (+0.7, -0.0) x 10^21 cm^-2
Galactic foreground: 2.8 x 10^21 cm^-2
Excess significance: <1.6 sigma
Photon index: 2.06 (+0.20, -0.13)
If the light curve continues to decay with a power-law decay index of
1.05, the count rate at T+24 hours will be 8.0 x 10^-3 count s^-1,
corresponding to an observed (unabsorbed) 0.3-10 keV flux of 2.9 x
10^-13 (4.4 x 10^-13) erg cm^-2 s^-1.
The results of the XRT-team automatic analysis are available at
http://www.swift.ac.uk/xrt_products/01351790.
This circular is an official product of the Swift-XRT team.
View this GCN Circular online at https://gcn.nasa.gov/circulars/41974.
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TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR
NUMBER: 41973
SUBJECT: GRB 250924A: Enhanced Swift-XRT position
DATE: 25/09/24 21:34:07 GMT
FROM: Phil Evans at U of Leicester <pae9(a)star.le.ac.uk>
J.P. Osborne, A.P. Beardmore, P.A. Evans and M.R. Goad (U. Leicester)
report on behalf of the Swift-XRT team.
Using 985 s of XRT Photon Counting mode data and 2 UVOT
images for GRB 250924A, we find an astrometrically corrected X-ray
position (using the XRT-UVOT alignment and matching UVOT field sources
to the USNO-B1 catalogue): RA, Dec = 51.87237, +74.65846 which is equivalent
to:
RA (J2000): 03h 27m 29.37s
Dec (J2000): +74d 39' 30.5"
with an uncertainty of 2.2 arcsec (radius, 90% confidence).
This position may be improved as more data are received. The latest
position can be viewed at http://www.swift.ac.uk/xrt_positions. Position
enhancement is described by Goad et al. (2007, A&A, 476, 1401) and Evans
et al. (2009, MNRAS, 397, 1177).
This circular was automatically generated, and is an official product of the
Swift-XRT team.
View this GCN Circular online at https://gcn.nasa.gov/circulars/41973.
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TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR
NUMBER: 41972
SUBJECT: GRB 250924A: J-band detection with WINTER
DATE: 25/09/24 19:38:12 GMT
FROM: Geoffrey Mo at Caltech / Carnegie Observatories <gmo(a)mit.edu>
Geoffrey Mo (Caltech/Carnegie), Tomas Ahumada (Caltech), Viraj Karambelkar (Columbia/CCA), Benjamin Schneider (LAM), Robert Stein (UMD), Danielle Frostig (CfA), Nathan Lourie (MIT), Robert Simcoe (MIT), and Mansi Kasliwal (Caltech) report:
We observed the field of GRB 250924A (Siegel et al., GCN 41959) in the near-infrared J band with the Palomar 1-m telescope, equipped with the 1.2-square degree WINTER camera (Lourie et al. 2020, Frostig et al. 2024).
Observations began at 2025-09-24T08:26:28 UTC in the J band (~8 minutes after the GRB trigger), consisting of 15 x 120 s exposures. The images were processed using the WINTER data reduction pipeline implemented with mirar
(https://github.com/winter-telescope/mirar, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13352565).
We detect a clear source at the optical counterpart location (Siegel et al., GCN 41959; Becerra et al., GCN 41960; Lipunov et al., GCN 41962; Schneider et al., GCN 41963; Freeberg et al., GCN 41968; Pankov et al., GCN 41969; Zheng et al., GCN 41970; Saikia et al., GCN 41971), with magnitude J ~ 18.6 mag (AB).
WINTER (Wide-field INfrared Transient ExploreR) is a partnership between MIT and Caltech, housed at Palomar Observatory, and funded by NSF MRI, NSF AAG, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and the MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research.
View this GCN Circular online at https://gcn.nasa.gov/circulars/41972.
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TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR
NUMBER: 41971
SUBJECT: GRB 250924A: GROWTH-India Telescope Upper Limits
DATE: 25/09/24 18:08:50 GMT
FROM: Varun Bhalerao at IIT Bombay <varunb(a)iitb.ac.in>
A.P. Saikia, T. Mohan, V. Swain, V. Bhalerao (IITB), G.C. Anupama, S. Barway (IIA) and R. Norbu (IAO) report on behalf of the GIT team:
We observed the field of Swift GRB 250924A (Siegel et al., GCN 41959), with 0.7m GROWTH-India Telescope (GIT). We started the observation at 2025-09-24 14:01:24 UT, i.e., 5.7 hours after the GRB trigger. We obtained multiple exposures in r'. We did not detect the source in our stacked image within the Swift UVOT localization region (Siegel et al., GCN 41959). The photometric upper limits are as follows:
| MJD (mid) | Filter | tmid-t0 (hr) | Exposure Time (sec) | Upper limit (AB) |
| ------------ | ------ | ------------ | ------------------- | ---------------- |
| 60942.618958 | r' | 6.55 | 11 x 360 | 21.5 |
The measurement is calibrated against PanSTARRS DR1 (Chambers et al., 2016) and not corrected for Galactic extinction. Our observations span a similar time frame as Pankov et al. (GCN 41969), and are broadly consistent with their measurements.
The GROWTH India Telescope (GIT; Kumar et al. 2022) is a 70-cm telescope with a 0.7-degree field of view, set up by the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) and the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IITB) with funding from DST-SERB and IUSSTF. It is located at the Indian Astronomical Observatory (Hanle), operated by IIA. We acknowledge funding by the IITB alumni batch of 1994, which partially supports the operations of the telescope. Telescope technical details are available at https://sites.google.com/view/growthindia/.
View this GCN Circular online at https://gcn.nasa.gov/circulars/41971.
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TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR
NUMBER: 41970
SUBJECT: GRB 250924A: KAIT optical observations
DATE: 25/09/24 17:33:43 GMT
FROM: Weikang Zheng at UC Berkeley <weikang(a)berkeley.edu>
WeiKang Zheng (UCB) and Alexei V. Filippenko (UCB) report on
behalf of the KAIT GRB team:
The 0.76-m Katzman Automatic Imaging Telescope (KAIT), located at
Lick Observatory, automatically responded to the Swift GRB
250924A (Siegel et al., GCN 41959) starting at 08:21:50 UT, 201s
after the burst. Observations lasted for about 1 hour with degraded
sky condition (cloudy), and a set of clear (roughly R) filter images
were obtained. We clearly detected the reported fading afterglow
(Siegel et. al, GCN 41959; Becerra et. al, GCN 41960; Schneider
et. al, GCN 41963; Freeberg et. al, GCN 41968; Pankov et al.,
GCN 41969). We measure its brightness decayed from 16.41 +/- 0.03
mag (Vega) at 3.52 minutes to 19.7 +/- 0.3 mag at 59.33 minutes after
the burst. The data after 300s can be fit with a single power law
with a decay index of -0.96 +/- 0.02.
View this GCN Circular online at https://gcn.nasa.gov/circulars/41970.
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TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR
NUMBER: 41969
SUBJECT: GRB 250924A: Mondy optical observations, afterglow fading
DATE: 25/09/24 16:19:46 GMT
FROM: Nicolai Pankov at HSE, IKI RAS <colinsergesen(a)gmail.com>
N. Pankov (HSE, IKI), A. Pozanenko (IKI), A. Moskvitin (SAO RAS), E. Klunko (ISTP) report on behalf of GRB-IKI-FuN:
We observed the field of GRB 250924A detected by Swift (Siegel et. al, GCN 41897) with the AZT-33IK 1.5m telescope of the Sayan Solar Observatory (Mondy). We are obtaining the images of the GRB field in the R-filter. The optical afterglow initially detected by Swift/UVOT (Siegel et. al, GCN 41897) and further observed by (Becerra et. al, GCN 41960; Schneider et. al, GCN 41963; Freeberg et. al, GCN 41968) is clearly visible in the stacked image of first 10 obtained images. Preliminary photometry is as follows:
Date UTstart Exptime t-T0 Filter OT Err. UL
(nxs) (mid, days) (3sigma)
2025-09-24 14:37:48 10x120 0.27036 R 21.47 0.09 22.5
The photometry was calibrated against nearby USNO-B1.0 stars (R2-mags) and not corrected for the Galactic extinction. We note that the afterglow has faded at ~3.7 mag in ~6.5 hr since detection. Further observations are ongoing.
View this GCN Circular online at https://gcn.nasa.gov/circulars/41969.
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TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR
NUMBER: 41968
SUBJECT: GRB 250924A: Kilonova-Catcher optical afterglow detection
DATE: 25/09/24 14:39:52 GMT
FROM: Damien Turpin at CEA-Saclay <dturpin-astro(a)hotmail.com>
M. Freeberg (KNC), C. Andrade(UMN), D. Turpin (CEA-Saclay/Irfu), S. Antier (OCA/IJCLab), M. Coughlin (UMN),S. Karpov (FZU), P. Hello (IJCLAB), M. Pillas (IAP) on behalf of the GRANDMA/Kilonova-Catcher collaboration:
We observed the field of GRB 250924A detected by Swift/BAT (Siegel et al., GCN 41959) with the GRANDMA citizen science project Kilonova-catcher (KNC). Our observations were performed with the TEC160FL telescope operated by M. Freeberg. Our observations started at TGRB+1.0hr.
In our stacked frames, subtracted from the PanSTARRS DR2 template image, we detect the optical counterpart reported by Swift/UVOT (Siegel et al., GCN 41959), DDOTI (Becerra et al., GCN 41960) and COLIBRI (Schneider et al., GCN 41963).
We report our follow-up results in the table below
+---------------+-----------+--------+----------------+-------------+
| Tmid-TGRB (hr)| Exp (s) | Filter | Magnitude | Instrument |
+===============+===========+========+================+=============+
| 1.63 | 8 x 300s | r (AB) | 20.03 +/- 0.10 | TEC160FL |
| 2.64 | 18 x 180s | i (AB) | 19.76 +/- 0.19 | TEC160FL |
+---------------+-----------+--------+----------------+-------------+
All the data have been reduced by a single data processing pipeline, STDPipe (Karpov et al., 2022). Images obtained with the sloan filters were calibrated using the PanSTARRS DR1 catalog.
We use the SkyPortal application (skyportal.io) to monitor our observational campaign (Coughlin et al. 2023).
GRANDMA is a worldwide telescope network (grandma.ijclab.in2p3.fr) devoted to the observation of transients in the context of multi-messenger astrophysics (Antier et al. 2020 MNRAS 497, 5518). Kilonova-Catcher (KNC) is the citizen science program of GRANDMA (http://kilonovacatcher.in2p3.fr/).
View this GCN Circular online at https://gcn.nasa.gov/circulars/41968.
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TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR
NUMBER: 41967
SUBJECT: GRB 250920C: Kilonova-Catcher optical afterglow detection
DATE: 25/09/24 14:37:22 GMT
FROM: Damien Turpin at CEA-Saclay <dturpin-astro(a)hotmail.com>
M. Freeberg (KNC), C. Andrade(UMN), D. Turpin (CEA-Saclay/Irfu), S. Antier (OCA/IJCLab), M. Coughlin (UMN),S. Karpov (FZU), P. Hello (IJCLAB), M. Pillas (IAP) on behalf of the GRANDMA/Kilonova-Catcher collaboration:
We observed the field of GRB 250920C detected by Fermi/GBM (Fermi GBM team, GCN 41903), Swift/BAT (Gupta et al., GCN 41904), SVOM/GRM (Wang et al., GCN 41929) and Konus-WIND (Panteleeva et al., GCN 41957) with the GRANDMA citizen science project Kilonova-catcher (KNC). Our observations were performed with the iTelescope T30 telescope operated by M. Freeberg. Our observations started at TGRB+3.3hr.
In our stacked frames, subtracted from the PanSTARRS DR2 template image, we detect the optical/IR counterpart reported by GOTO (Wortley et al., GCN 41907) and further confirmed by many other teams (Strausbaugh et al.,GCN 41911; Ghosh et al., GCN 41913; Kuin et al., GCN 41920; Mohan et al., GCN 41925; Sanchez-Ramirez et al., GCN 41928; Guiffreda et al., GCN 41943; Mo et al., GCN 41947; de Ugarte Postigo et al., GCN 41951; de Wet et al., GCN 41952; Izzo et al., GCN 41955; Zheng et al., GCN 41956; Zhu et al., GCN 41965)
We report some of our first image follow-up results in the table below
+---------------+----------+-----------+----------------+--------------+
| Tmid-TGRB (hr)| Exp (s) | Filter | Magnitude | Instrument |
+===============+==========+===========+================+==============+
| 3.49 | 3 x 300s | Rc (Vega) | 18.93 +/- 0.07 | iT30 |
+---------------+----------+-----------+----------------+--------------+
All the data have been reduced by a single data processing pipeline, STDPipe (Karpov et al., 2022). Images obtained with the Johnson-cousins filters were calibrated using the GAIA DR3 synphot catalog.
We use the SkyPortal application (skyportal.io) to monitor our observational campaign (Coughlin et al. 2023).
GRANDMA is a worldwide telescope network (grandma.ijclab.in2p3.fr) devoted to the observation of transients in the context of multi-messenger astrophysics (Antier et al. 2020 MNRAS 497, 5518). Kilonova-Catcher (KNC) is the citizen science program of GRANDMA (http://kilonovacatcher.in2p3.fr/).
View this GCN Circular online at https://gcn.nasa.gov/circulars/41967.
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