//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// TITLE: GCN GRB OBSERVATION REPORT NUMBER: 4550 SUBJECT: GRB 060121: A bright short/hard GRB localized by HETE-2 WXM DATE: 06/01/21 23:53:39 GMT FROM: Don Lamb at U.Chicago GRB 060121: A bright short/hard GRB localized by HETE-2 WXM M. Arimoto, G. Ricker, J-L. Atteia, N. Kawai, D. Lamb, and S. Woosley, on behalf of the HETE Science Team; T. Donaghy, E. Fenimore, M. Galassi, C. Graziani, N. Ishikawa, A. Kobayashi, J. Kotoku, M. Maetou, M. Matsuoka, Y. Nakagawa, T. Sakamoto, R. Sato, T. Shimokawabe, Y. Shirasaki, S. Sugita, M. Suzuki, T. Tamagawa, K. Tanaka, and A. Yoshida, on behalf of the HETE WXM Team; N. Butler, G. Crew, J. Doty, G. Prigozhin, R. Vanderspek, J. Villasenor, J. G. Jernigan, A. Levine, G. Azzibrouck, J. Braga, R. Manchanda, G. Pizzichini, and S. Gunasekera, on behalf of the HETE Operations and HETE Optical-SXC Teams; M. Boer, J-F Olive, J-P Dezalay, and K. Hurley, on behalf of the HETE FREGATE Team; report: At 22:24:54.5 UTC (80694.5 SOD) on 21 January 2006 the HETE FREGATE, WXM, and SXC instruments detected event H4010, a bright short/hard GRB. The WXM flight location was distributed in a GCN Notice at 22:25:08 UTC, 13 seconds after the start of the burst. Ground analysis of the WXM data yields a best-fit location R.A. = +09h 10m 04s ; Dec. = +45d 41' 24" (J2000), with a 90% confidence error radius of 8 arcminutes. The T90 duration of the burst is approximately 2 s in the FREGATE 80-400 keV energy band. Further analyses are in progress. Further information about this burst will be available at the following URL: http://space.mit.edu/HETE/Bursts/GRB060121 //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// TITLE: GCN GRB OBSERVATION REPORT NUMBER: 4551 SUBJECT: GRB 060121: A bright short/hard GRB localized by HETE-2 SXC DATE: 06/01/22 00:06:45 GMT FROM: Don Lamb at U.Chicago GRB 060121: A bright short/hard GRB localized by HETE-2 SXC G. Prigozhin, G. Ricker, J-L. Atteia, N. Kawai, D. Lamb, and S. Woosley, on behalf of the HETE Science Team; M. Arimoto, T. Donaghy, E. Fenimore, M. Galassi, C. Graziani, N. Ishikawa, A. Kobayashi, J. Kotoku, M. Maetou, M. Matsuoka, Y. Nakagawa, T. Sakamoto, R. Sato, T. Shimokawabe, Y. Shirasaki, S. Sugita, M. Suzuki, T. Tamagawa, K. Tanaka, and A. Yoshida, on behalf of the HETE WXM Team; N. Butler, G. Crew, J. Doty, R. Vanderspek, J. Villasenor, J. G. Jernigan, A. Levine, G. Azzibrouck, J. Braga, R. Manchanda, G. Pizzichini, and S. Gunasekera, on behalf of the HETE Operations and HETE Optical-SXC Teams; M. Boer, J-F Olive, J-P Dezalay, and K. Hurley, on behalf of the HETE FREGATE Team; report: At 22:24:54.5 UTC (80694.5 SOD) on 21 January 2006 the HETE FREGATE, WXM, and SXC instruments detected event H4010, a bright short GRB. Ground analysis of the SXC data yields a best-fit location R.A. = +09h 09m 57s ; Dec. = +45d 40' 30" (J2000), with a 90% confidence error radius of 80 arcseconds. Further analyses are in progress. Further information about this burst will be available at the following URL: http://space.mit.edu/HETE/Bursts/GRB060121 //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// TITLE: GCN GRB OBSERVATION REPORT NUMBER: 4552 SUBJECT: GRB 060121 (=H4010): Results of preliminary spectral analysis DATE: 06/01/22 00:54:29 GMT FROM: Don Lamb at U.Chicago GRB 060121 (=H4010): Results of preliminary spectral analysis M. Boer, G. Ricker, J-L. Atteia, N. Kawai, D. Lamb, and S. Woosley, on behalf of the HETE Science Team; M. Arimoto, T. Donaghy, E. Fenimore, M. Galassi, C. Graziani, N. Ishikawa, A. Kobayashi, J. Kotoku, M. Maetou, M. Matsuoka, Y. Nakagawa, T. Sakamoto, R. Sato, T. Shimokawabe, Y. Shirasaki, S. Sugita, M. Suzuki, T. Tamagawa, K. Tanaka, and A. Yoshida, on behalf of the HETE WXM Team; N. Butler, G. Crew, J. Doty, G. Prigozhin, R. Vanderspek, J. Villasenor, J. G. Jernigan, A. Levine, G. Azzibrouck, J. Braga, R. Manchanda, G. Pizzichini, and S. Gunasekera, on behalf of the HETE Operations and HETE Optical-SXC Teams; J-F Olive, J-P Dezalay, and K. Hurley, on behalf of the HETE FREGATE Team; report: A preliminary analysis of the WXM and FREGATE spectral data for GRB 060121 (=H4010) shows that the data is adequately fit by a power-law times exponential model with best-fit parameters alpha = -0.46 +/- 0.07 E_peak = 120 +/- 7 keV. Thus the spectrum of the burst is very hard, as expected for a short/hard GRB. The preliminary spectral analysis gives fluences for the burst of 0.66 x 10-6 erg cm-2 in the 2-30 keV energy band, 4.3 x 10-6 erg cm-2 in the 30-400 keV energy band, and 4.9 x 10-6 erg cm-2 in the 2-400 keV energy band. The burst is thus quite bright, given that its T90 duration is about 2 seconds. Further information about this burst will be available at the following URL: http://space.mit.edu/HETE/Bursts/GRB060121 //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// TITLE: GCN GRB OBSERVATION REPORT NUMBER: 4553 SUBJECT: GRB 060121: A short-hard GRB in a cluster? DATE: 06/01/22 01:28:37 GMT FROM: Eran Ofek at Tel Aviv U. E. O. Ofek (Caltech) report: The position of the short-hard burst GRB060121 (Arimoto et al. GCN 4550; Prigozhin et al. GCN 4551) is located 10.3 arcmin from the center of the galaxy cluster ZwCl 0906.7+4603. Note, that the probability to find a galaxy cluster in the NED archive, within 10 arcmin from a random position on the celestial sphere (with Galactic latitude |b|>25 deg), is about 5%. A graph of this probability as function of angular distance is available from: http://astro.caltech.edu/~eran/GRB/060121/ProbDistCluster.jpg //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// TITLE: GCN GRB OBSERVATION REPORT NUMBER: 4554 SUBJECT: GRB060121 - SDSS pre-burst observations DATE: 06/01/22 02:05:44 GMT FROM: Richard J. Cool at U.of AZ/Steward Obs Richard J. Cool (Arizona), Daniel J. Eisenstein (Arizona), David W. Hogg (NYU), Michael R. Blanton (NYU), David J. Schlegel (LBNL), J. Brinkmann (APO), Donald P. Schneider (PSU), and Daniel E. Vanden Berk (PSU) report: The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) imaged the field of burst GRB060121 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/GRB060121 We supply FITS images in each of the 5 SDSS bands of a 8'x8' region centered on the GRB position (ra=137.488 (09:09:57.0), dec=45.6750 (45:40:30.0); GCN 4550), 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 GRB060121_sdss.calstar.dat, we report photometry and astrometry of 422 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 GRB060121_sdss.objects_flux.dat and GRB060121_sdss.objects_magnitudes.dat, we report photometry of 621 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 GRB060121_sdss.objects_flux.dat are in nanomaggies while the magnitudes listed in GRB060121_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=0.079 mag, A_g=0.058 mag, A_r = 0.042 mag, A_i=0.032 mag, and A_z=0.023 mag. The file GRB060121_sdss.spectro.dat contains a list of the 4 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. 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. More detailed information pertaining to our SDSS GRB releases can be found in our initial data release paper (Cool et al. 2006, astro-ph/0601218). 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, Adelman-McCarthy et al. (2006, ApJS, in press, astro-ph/0507711), when using the data or referring to the technical documentation. //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// TITLE: GCN GRB OBSERVATION REPORT NUMBER: 4555 SUBJECT: GRB 060121: Optical imaging DATE: 06/01/22 02:28:47 GMT FROM: Johan U. Fynbo at U.Copenhagen Johan P. U. Fynbo, Jens Hjorth (DARK Cosmology Centre), Andrew Levan, Nial Tanvir (University of Hertfordshire), Kari Nilsson (University of Turku) report: "Using ALFOSC on the Nordic Optical Telescope we have obtained BRI imaging of the field of the short/hard GRB060121 (GCN #4551) around Jan 22.05. A visual examination reveals a westward moving source in the error circle, but no other new sources are detected in comparison with the SDSS images of the field (GCN #4554). No known asteroid is expected in the field according to the JPL Small Body Search and the Harvard Planet Checker. Further observations are planned." //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// TITLE: GCN GRB OBSERVATION REPORT NUMBER: 4556 SUBJECT: GRB 060121: optical observations DATE: 06/01/22 02:44:59 GMT FROM: Angelo Antonelli at Obs. Astro. di Roma L.A. Antonelli (INAF/OAR), D. Malesani (SISSA), S. Covino (INAF/OABr), G. Andreuzzi, and G. Tessicini (INAF/TNG), report: "We observed the field of GRB 060121 (Arimoto et al., GCN 4550; Prigozhin et al., GCN 4551; Boer et al., GCN 4552) with the Italian 3.6m TNG telescope, located at the Canary Islands. Preliminary analysis of a set of R-band exposures (totalling 30 minutes on-source) reveals no new sources brighter than the SDSS limit reported by Cool et al in GCN 4554. This message can be cited." //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// TITLE: GCN GRB OBSERVATION REPORT NUMBER: 4557 SUBJECT: GRB 060121: Infrared Observations DATE: 06/01/22 06:54:35 GMT FROM: Josh Bloom at UC Berkeley J. S. Bloom, K. Alatalo (UC Berkeley) report on behalf of a larger collaboration: "We observed the field of GRB 060121 (Arimoto et al., GCN 4550; Prigozhin et al. GCN 4551) with the 1.3 meter Peters Automated Infrared Imaging Telescope (PAIRITEL) on Mt. Hopkins, Arizona, beginning at 2006-01-22 04:43:15 UT. In a stack of the first 345 seconds of integration, we find no new objects in the HETE-SXC error circle in JHKs bands brighter than the 2MASS detection levels. All significantly detected sources fainter than 2MASS have optically pre- imaged counterparts from SDSS (Cool et al. GCN 4554). Our approximate 10 sigma detection levels are J=18.7, H=17.6, Ks=16.6 mag, respectively." This message may be cited. //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// TITLE: GCN GRB OBSERVATION REPORT NUMBER: 4558 SUBJECT: GRB 060121: optical observations DATE: 06/01/22 09:03:37 GMT FROM: Grant Williams at Steward Observatory G. G. Williams, E. Olszewski, and P. A. Milne (Steward Observatory) report: We observed the HETE-SXC error region of the short/hard GRB 060121 (Arimoto et al., GCN 4550, Prigozhin et al., GCN 4551, Boer et al., GCN 4552) with the 90prime imager on the Steward Observatory 90-inch Bok telescope at Kitt Peak. We obtained two sets of summed images in Rc, each with a total exposure time of 1800 seconds, beginning at 04:02:45 UT (5.6 hours after the GRB) and at 05:40:29 UT. Visual comparison of these images reveals no significantly variable sources to approximately 1.0 magnitudes deeper than the SDSS r' image (Cool et al., GCN 4554). This message may be cited. //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// TITLE: GCN GRB OBSERVATION REPORT NUMBER: 4559 SUBJECT: GRB060121: SARA Observations DATE: 06/01/22 10:08:12 GMT FROM: Autumn Homewood at Clemson U Jim Webb (UGA), A.L. Homewood, K.V. Garimella, and D.H. Hartmann (Clemson), on behalf of the Clemson GRB Follow-Up Team, report: We observed the Hete-SXC error box of GRB060121 (Arimoto et al., GCN 4550, Prigozhin et al., GCN 4551, Boer et al., GCN 4552) with the SARA 0.9-m at Kitt Peak. We co-added 24 R-Band exposures of 300 seconds each, for a total integrated exposure time of 7200 seconds (2 hours), beginning at UT060122 03:12:50 and ending at 05:29:53. We detect no new sources down to a limiting magnitude of R=19.77 +/- 0.23 mag compared to the USNOA2.0 catalogue. We would like to thank Dr. Webb for the ToO interrupt observations. The Clemson Unversity GRB Response SIte may be found at: http://people.clemson.edu/~kgarime/burst/index.php The SARA Homepage may be found at: http://www.saraobservatory.org This message may be cited. //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// TITLE: GCN GRB OBSERVATION REPORT NUMBER: 4560 SUBJECT: GRB 060121: Swift XRT refined position DATE: 06/01/22 12:53:55 GMT FROM: Vanessa Mangano at INAF-IASFPA V. Mangano, V. La Parola, T. Mineo (INAF-IASFPA), G. Tagliaferri, P. Romano (INAF-OAB), P. O'Brien (UL), D.N. Burrows (PSU) on behalf of the Swift XRT team: We have analyzed the first 5 ks of XRT data of the Swift ToO observation of the HETE burst GRB 060121 (M. Arimoto at al. 2006, GCN 4550). The XRT observation started on 2006-01-22 at 01:21:37 UT, 2hr 56min 42.5s after the HETE trigger. We find a single bright fading source at RA(J2000) = 09h 09m 52.13s Dec(J2000) = +45d 39m 44.9s with an uncertainty of 3.7 arcsec (90% containment). This position includes the latest XRT boresight correction. This position is 69 acrsecond from the refined HETE posizion (G. Prigozhin et al. 2006, GCN 4551), well within the HETE error box. [GCN OPS NOTE(22jan06): Per author's request, carriage returns were added. And "HETE burst GRB 060116" was changed to "HETE burst GRB 060121".] //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// TITLE: GCN GRB OBSERVATION REPORT NUMBER: 4561 SUBJECT: GRB 060121: candidate optical counterpart DATE: 06/01/22 12:55:46 GMT FROM: Daniele Malesani at SISSA-ISAS,Trieste,Italy D. Malesani (SISSA/ISAS), L.A. Antonelli (INAF/OAR), S. Covino (INAF/OABr), E. Palazzi (INAF/IASF Bo), G. Andreuzzi (INAF/TNG), and G. Tessicini (INAF/TNG), report on behalf of a larger Italian collaboration: We observed the field of GRB 060121 (Arimoto et al., GCN 4550; Prigozhin et al., GCN 4551; Boer et al., GCN 4552) at two epochs with the Italian TNG telescope located in the Canary Islands. Photometry was performed in the R-band starting on Jan 22.021 UT (Antonelli et al., GCN 4556) and Jan 22.193 UT (2.1 and 6.2 h after the GRB, respectively). The second run provided images of lower quality, due to bad observing conditions. Inside the XRT error circle (Mangano et al., GCN 4560), we see a faint source which is detected in our first dataset but is not detected in the second epoch (which is, however, shallower). The coordinates are (J2000): alpha = 09:09:51.93 delta = +45:39:45.4 We estimate an error of about 0.5" (mainly due the low S/N of the object). Even if at the moment we do not makeany claim of variability, we suggest this object may be the optical counterpart of GRB 060121. This message can be cited. //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// TITLE: GCN GRB OBSERVATION REPORT NUMBER: 4562 SUBJECT: GRB 060121: Confirmation of Afterglow DATE: 06/01/22 16:56:49 GMT FROM: Andrew Levan at U.of Leicester A.J. Levan, N.R. Tanvir (U. Hertfordshire), J. Fynbo, J. Hjorth (DARK Cosmology Centre), A. Fruchter (STScI), T. Grav (IfA, Hawaii), K. Nilsson (U. Turku), J. Rhoads (ASU) report for a larger collaboration: Inspection of our images of GRB 060121 obtained at the NOT (GCN 4555) on Jan 22.05UT reveal a faint source coincident with the suggested X-ray (GCN 4560) and optical (GCN 4561) counterparts. Further R-band imaging was obtained with the WIYN telescope starting at Jan 22.48UT, the object is still visible, however has clearly faded between the two observations, confirming that it is the afterglow of GRB 060121. Further observations are planned. //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// TITLE: GCN GRB OBSERVATION REPORT NUMBER: 4563 SUBJECT: GRB 060121: I-band Limits DATE: 06/01/22 17:23:55 GMT FROM: Melissa Nysewander at UNC,Chapel Hill M. Nysewander, J. Kirschbrown, D. Reichart, P. Holvorcem, M. Schwartz report on behalf of the UNC GRB Team: We began imaging the error circle of GRB 060121 (Arimoto et al., GCN 4550) at 03:58:17 UT, 5.6 hours after the burst, with the Tenagra II 32-inch Telescope in the I filter. The images are calibrated to 5 transformed I-band magnitudes derived from the photometry of the SDSS (Cool et al., GCN 4554). In a stack of 12 x 300s exposures, we do not see the optical afterglow (Malesani et al., GCN 4561; Levan et al., GCN 4562) down to a 3-sigma limiting magnitude of I = 20.9 at a mean time of 6.1 hours after the burst. //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// TITLE: GCN GRB OBSERVATION REPORT NUMBER: 4564 SUBJECT: Konus-Wind observation of GRB 060121 DATE: 06/01/22 18:37:03 GMT FROM: Valentin Pal'shin at Ioffe Inst S. Golenetskii, R.Aptekar, E. Mazets, V. Pal'shin, D. Frederiks, and T. Cline on behalf of the Konus-Wind team report: The GRB 060121 (=H4010; Arimoto et al., GCN 4550; Prigozhin et al., GCN 4551) triggered Konus-Wind at T0=80700.890 s UT (22:25:00.890). The Konus-Wind light curve shows a single pulse with a duration of ~2 sec. As observed by Konus-Wind the burst had a fluence of 4.71(-3.71,+0.44)x10^-6 erg/cm2 and peak flux measured from T0+0.448 sec on 64 msec time scale 1.64(-1.32,+0.18)x10^-5 erg/cm2/sec (both in the 20 keV - 1 MeV energy range). The time-integrated spectrum of the GRB is well fitted (in the 20 keV - 1 MeV range) by GRBM (Band) model for which: the low-energy photon index is alpha = -0.51(-0.60,+0.55), the high energy photon index beta = -2.39(-1.41,+0.27), the break energy E0 = 70(-52, +90) keV (chi2 = 59/59 dof). The fitting by a power law with exponential cutoff model: dN/dE ~ E^(-alpha) * exp(-E*(2-alpha)/Ep) in the same energy range gives alpha = 0.82(-0.21,+0.38) and Ep = 134(-17, +32) keV (chi2 = 63/60 dof). All the quoted errors are at the 90% confidence level. //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// TITLE: GCN GRB OBSERVATION REPORT NUMBER: 4565 SUBJECT: GRB 060121: Swift XRT refined analysis DATE: 06/01/22 18:46:38 GMT FROM: Pat Romano at OAB-Swift V. Mangano, V. La Parola, T. Mineo (INAF-IASFPA), P. O'Brien (UL), P. Romano (INAF-OAB), D.N. Burrows (PSU), M. Chester (PSU), L. Angelini (GSFC) on behalf of the Swift XRT team: The Swift XRT instrument began observing the HETE-discovered GRB 050121 (Arimoto et al., GCN 4550; Prigozhin et al., GCN 4551) at 01:21:37 UT on 22 January 2006 (Mangano et al., GCN 4560) 10.6 ks after the burst. Further analysis of the first 5 ks of XRT data of GRB 060121 spanning three orbits (Mangano et al., GCN 4560) revealed that the source is fading with a power law decay index of -1.08 + / - 0.24. The average spectrum is well fitted by an absorbed power law model with a photon index of 2.07 + / - 0.25 (90% confidence level). The best fit absorption column of (7.8 + / - 4.5)e20 cm^-2 is slightly in excess of the Galactic absorption column of 1.7e20 cm^-2. The average unabsorbed 0.2-10 keV flux in the time range 10.6 - 22 ks after the trigger is at the level of 4.6e-12 ergs cm^-2 s^-1. The predicted flux at 24 hours after the trigger is at the level of 6.8e-13 ergs cm^-2 s^-1 (corresponding to a count rate of about 1.1e-2 counts/s). New observations are being performed. According to NED, the nearest two galaxies with known redshifts are SDSS J091016.39+453819.9 and SDSS J091023.53+454159.8 with a redshift of 0.154357 and 0.154272, respectively. They are 4.5 and 6 arcmin from the Swift GRB position (Mangano et al., GCN 4560). //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// TITLE: GCN GRB OBSERVATION REPORT NUMBER: 4566 SUBJECT: GRB 060121: Liverpool Telescopes optical limits DATE: 06/01/23 11:00:54 GMT FROM: Carole Mundell at ARI, JMU,Liverpool A. Monfardini, A. Melandri, C. Guidorzi, C.G. Mundell, A. Gomboc, I.A. Steele (Liverpool JMU) on behalf of the Liverpool GRB group report: "On Jan 21.968 UT and Jan 22.035 UT the Liverpool Telescope imaged the field of GRB060121 (HETE alert 4010, Arimoto et al., GCN 4550; Prigozhin et al. GCN 4551), beginning at 0.83 and 2.44 hours after the GRB, respectively. Images were taken with r', i' and z' filters. The SXC error circle (Prigozhin et al. GCN 4551) was partially covered (about 50%) during the first hour of observations. In the second hour it was entirely inside the Liverpool Telescope 4.6 arcmin field of view, as was the Swift-XRT error circle provided by Mangano et al. (GCN 4560). The optical counterpart suggested by Malesani et al. (GCN 4561) and Levan et al. (GCN 4562) is not detected in our images. Manual inspection reveals no afterglow candidate down to a magnitude limit of r'> 22.5, i'> 22.2 and z'> 21.6 at approximately 2.7 hours after the burst. The limits are determined by comparison with SDSS pre-burst photometry. This message can be cited" //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// TITLE: GCN GRB OBSERVATION REPORT NUMBER: 4567 SUBJECT: GRB 060121: Swift/UVOT upper limits DATE: 06/01/23 17:00:25 GMT FROM: Alice Breeveld at MSSL-UCL A. A. Breeveld (UCL-MSSL), L. Angelini (GSFC), D. Hinshaw (GSFC-SPSYS), M. Carter (UCL-MSSL), N. Gehrels (GSFC) on behalf of the Swift/UVOT team The Swift UVOT instrument began observing the HETE-discovered GRB 050121 (Arimoto et al., GCN 4550; Prigozhin et al., GCN 4551) as a target of opportunity at 01:21:28 UT on 22 January 2006 10.6 ks after the burst. No new source is found at the XRT position (Mangano et al., GCN 4565) in coadded images from the first ToO observation, with any of the filters used down to the following 5-sigma magnitude upper limits. No exposures were taken in UVW1 or UVM2. These values are not corrected for Galactic extinction. Filter T_range(s) Exp(s) 5sigUL(mag) B 10593-16768 1099 20.6 V 11917-12639 712 19.4 U 21650-22022 368 19.7 UVW2 11003-18423 1625 21.2 White 10798-17682 1099 20.7 //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// TITLE: GCN GRB OBSERVATION REPORT NUMBER: 4582 SUBJECT: GRB 060121: OHP optical limits DATE: 06/01/24 21:26:09 GMT FROM: Alain Klotz at CESR-CNRS Klotz, A. (CESR-OMP), Damerdji Y. (OHP), Vachier F. (OHP) report: We imaged the field of GRB 060121 detected by HETE (Arimoto et al. GCNC 4550) with the 120cm at the Observatoire de Haute-Provence - France. First image was acquired 1.65h after the GCN trigger. We do not detected an OT source. According to the limiting magnitude: R>20.0 Magnitude was estimated with the nearby USNO-A2 stars This message may be cited. //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// TITLE: GCN GRB OBSERVATION REPORT NUMBER: 4604 SUBJECT: GRB 060121: Probable Detection of NIR Afterglow DATE: 06/01/26 22:50:50 GMT FROM: Don Lamb at U.Chicago GRB 060121: Probable Detection of NIR Afterglow F. Hearty (Colorado), M. Bayliss (Chicago), D. Q. Lamb (Chicago), G. Gyuk (Chicago), M. Hammergren (Adler Planetarium), A. Puckett (Chicago), B. Ketzeback (APO), J. Barentine (APO), J. Dembicky (APO), R. McMillan (APO), and D. G. York (Chicago) report: We observed the afterglow (Malesani et al. GCN 4561, Levan et al. GCN 4562) of GRB 060121, a bright short/hard burst localized by HETE-2 (Arimoto et al. GCN 4550, Prigozhin et al. GCN 4551, Boer et al. GCN 4552), on the night of January 22nd, using NIC-FPS on the ARC 3.5-meter telescope at Apache Point Observatory. The observation began at 7.25 UT on 23 January (32.83 hours after the burst) and ended at 8.63 UT on 23 January (34.21 hours after the burst). The observation consisted of a series of 180 20-second exposures in Ks. We have constructed from them a stacked image of the GRB field, corresponding to a 60-minute exposure. We detect an object at the 5-sigma confidence level within 1" of the location of the optical afterglow and well within the revised XRT error circle (Mangano et al. GCN 4560). The PSF of the object is consistent with that of a point source. We therefore identify the object as the probable NIR afterglow of GRB 060121. We measure Ks ~ 20 mag, calibrated relative to four 2MASS stars in the field. Extended emission is visible about 1" SE and NE of the probable NIR afterglow, but is detected at less than the 2-sigma confidence level. Therefore the emission might be due to nearby galaxies (possibly including the host of GRB060121) or merely to a background fluctuation. Further observations are in progress. NIC-FPS is currently in its commissioning phase. //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// TITLE: GCN GRB OBSERVATION REPORT NUMBER: 4611 SUBJECT: GRB 060121: Confirmation of NIR Afterglow DATE: 06/01/28 00:58:25 GMT FROM: Don Lamb at U.Chicago GRB 060121: Confirmation of NIR Afterglow F. Hearty (Colorado), M. Bayliss (Chicago), D. Q. Lamb (Chicago), G. Gyuk (Chicago), M. Hammergren (Adler Planetarium), A. Puckett (Chicago), B. Ketzeback (APO), J. Barentine (APO), J. Dembicky (APO), R. McMillan (APO), and D. G. York (Chicago) report: We have obtained a second-epoch observation of the afterglow (Malesani et al. GCN 4561, Levan et al. GCN 4562) of GRB 060121, a bright short/hard burst localized by HETE-2 (Arimoto et al. GCN 4550, Prigozhin et al. GCN 4551, Boer et al. GCN 4552), using NIC-FPS on the ARC 3.5-meter telescope at Apache Point Observatory. The second-epoch observation began at 5.50 UT on 27 January (5.30 days after the burst) and ended at 6.92 UT on 27 January (5.35 days after the burst). The observation consisted of a series of 195 20-second exposures in Ks. Using these exposures, we have constructed a stacked image of the GRB field, corresponding to a 65-minute exposure. In this image, we no longer detect the Ks-band source that we reported in GCN 4604. Therefore, the source has clearly faded between the two observations, confirming that it is the NIR afterglow of GRB 060121 The extended emission features that were visible in the first epoch image about 1" SE and about 1" NE of the NIR afterglow are detected in the second epoch image, but at lower significance than in the first epoch image because of somewhat poorer seeing. We are therefore unable to establish with confidence the reality of either emission feature. NIC-FPS is currently in its commissioning phase. //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// TITLE: GCN GRB OBSERVATION REPORT NUMBER: 4628 SUBJECT: GRB 060121: Gemini Late-time Observations DATE: 06/02/01 23:40:43 GMT FROM: S. Bradley Cenko at Caltech S. B. Cenko, E. Ofek (Caltech), D. B. Fox (Penn State), and E. Berger (Carnegie) report on behalf of a larger collaboration: We have imaged the region of the short-hard GRB060121 (GCNs 4550, 4551) with the GMOS instrument on the Gemini North Telescope. Images consisted of 3 x 360 s exposures taken in r' and 5 x 210 s exposures taken in i' at a mean epoch of approximately Feb. 1.55. The 3-sigma limiting magnitude of these images, estimated with respect to the SDSS field calibration (GCN 4554), is approximately r' > 25.6, i' > 25.4. We find no evidence for any source within 0.5" of the transient reported by Malesani et al. (GCN 4561) to the limits stated above. However, within the XRT error circle (GCN 4560), approximately 1" to the east of the OT position, we find evidence for a marginal source. The coordinates of this source (J2000.0) are: RA: 09:09:52.019 Dec: +45:39:45.45 We estimate photometry for this object as r' ~ 26.4, i' ~ 26.0, although the errors on these measurements are very large due to 1) the faintness of the object, and 2) an unexpectedly large scatter in the photometric zeropoint. We note that this position likely coincides with the possible identification of a host galaxy in the NIR by Hearty et al. (GCN 4604). //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// TITLE: GCN GRB OBSERVATION REPORT NUMBER: 4711 SUBJECT: GRB 060121 : WIDGET Pre-trigger limit DATE: 06/02/08 01:11:42 GMT FROM: Toru Tamagawa at RIKEN K. Onda, K. Abe, M. Tashiro (Saitama-U), T. Tamagawa, Y. Urata (RIKEN), H. Azuma, M. Kuwahara (RIKEN/TUS), F. Usui (ISAS/JAXA) on behalf of the WIDGET collaboration report: "A very wide field camera, WIDGET, located at Akeno, Japan, observed the HETE-2 error region of GRB 060121 (Arimoto et al., GCN 4550). We continuously monitored the the region with repeat of unfiltered 5 sec exposure from 8 hours before the burst through the beginning of twilight (3.5 hours before the burst). Those images did not show any optical emission at the afterglow position reported by Malesani et al. (GCN 4561). The 1-sigma limiting magnitude of each frame derived by the Tycho 2 catalog is around V=10.7 magnitude." This message may be cited. //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// TITLE: GCN GRB OBSERVATION REPORT NUMBER: 4756 SUBJECT: GRB060121: optical observations DATE: 06/02/13 15:19:26 GMT FROM: Alexei Pozanenko at IKI, Moscow V. Rumyantsev (CrAO), D. Sharapov (MAO, and NOT La Palma), M. Ibrahimov (MAO), and A. Pozanenko (IKI), on behalf of larger GRB follow up collaboration report: We observed error box of GRB060121 (Arimoto et al., GCN 4550) with 1.5m telescope of Maidanak Astronomical Observatory in R-band on Jan. 23 between (UT) 17:49 and 18:26. Within XRT error circle (Mangano et al., GCN 4560) we do not detect OT (Malesani et al., GCN 4560) and optical source mentioned by Cenko et al., (GCN 4628). Coordinates of the closest to the XRT error circle faint optical source, which is ~7" from the center of the XRT error circle are: RA(J2000) = 09 09 52.18 DEC(J2000) = +45 39 37.4 with uncertainties in both coordinates of 0.3 arcsec. Brightness estimation of the faint source is following: Obs. time, Exp., R (mag), Mag.(UL), Seeing (UT) (s) Jan. 23 17:49-18:26 1800 22.6(+/-0.3) 22.9 1.6" The photometry and astrometry reduction is based on USNO A2.0. The stacked image can de found in http://grb.rssi.ru/GRB060121/ //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// TITLE: GCN GRB OBSERVATION REPORT NUMBER: 4841 SUBJECT: GRB 060121: HST observations DATE: 06/02/28 01:02:32 GMT FROM: Andrew Levan at U.of Leicester A.J. Levan, N.R. Tanvir (University of Hertfordshire), A. Fruchter (STScI), J. Fynbo, J. Hjorth (Dark Cosmology Centre), E. Rol (University of Leicester), D. Bersier (Liverpool JMU), J. Gorosabel, A.J. Castro-Tirado (IAA-CSIC Granada) report for a larger collaboration: We observed the location of the HETE-2 short hard burst GRB 060121 (Prigozhin et al. GCN 4551; Malesani et al. GCN 4561) with HST on 27 February 2006 using both ACS and NICMOS. Approximately 4500 s of observations in each of F606W and F160W were obtained. Performing astrometry between these images and those obtained at the WIYN (Levan et al. GCN 4562) reveals no evidence for an afterglow to R>28, although the position of the burst lies close to a faint red galaxy with F160W =24.0, F606W =26.8. The morphology of the galaxy is long and thin, possibly an edge on disk. If this object is the host galaxy of GRB 060121 then it is relatively red compared to the hosts of long bursts, and there are also several other galaxies with very red colours within 30" of the burst position. Short bursts have been observed in a greater variety of host galaxies, but in this case, the faintness of the galaxy in both the optical and IR favour a higher redshift than has been measured for most short bursts to date (which is also consistent with the red colour of the afterglow). We thank Matt Mountain for using Director's Discretionary Time to observe GRB 060121. Further analysis is ongoing.