TITLE:   GCN GRB OBSERVATION REPORT
NUMBER:  1439
SUBJECT: GRB/XRF 020427, detection of an underlying system with the VLT
DATE:    02/06/25 05:45:40 GMT
FROM:    Alberto Castro-Tirado at Inst.de Astro. de Andalucia  <ajct@iaa.es>

GRB/XRF 020427, detection of an underlying system with the VLT
------------------------------------------------

A. J. Castro-Tirado and J. Gorosabel (Instituto de Astrofísica
de Andalucía, IAA-CSIC, Granada)
C. Sánchez-Fernández (ESA-VILSPA, Madrid)
N. Lund and S. Brandt (DSRI, Copenhagen)
J. M. Castro Cerón (ROA, San Fernando)

communicate:

"We have observed the field of the GRB/XRF 020427 (GCN Circulars 1383, 1384,
1386, 1390, 1394) on 11.388-11.397 June 2002 with the 8.2-m VLT telescope
at Paranal ESO's observatory (equipped with FORS2). Imagery was obtained
in the B- and R-bands (300-s exposure time each) under rather poor seeing
conditions (1".2). The position of the likely X-ray afterglow detected by
BSAX and followed-up by Chandra (GCN Circulars 1387, 1392) is coincident
with the north part of a extended (about 4" x 2"), blue object with R =
23.3 +/- 0.2 and B = 23.8 +/- 0.4 which is consistent with the galaxy system
reported independently by Fruchter et al. (GCN Circ. 1440). An identification
chart is posted at www.iaa.es/~ajct/XRFs/xrf02042