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 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.