TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR NUMBER: 17173 SUBJECT: Swift detection of 4U 1700+24 (= V934 Her) DATE: 14/12/13 02:18:26 GMT FROM: David Palmer at LANL J. A. Kennea (PSU), H. A. Krimm (CRESST/GSFC/USRA), F. E. Marshall (NASA/GSFC), K. L. Page (U Leicester), D. M. Palmer (LANL), T. Sakamoto (AGU) and M. H. Siegel (PSU) report on behalf of the Swift Team: At 01:56:11 UT, the Swift Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) triggered and located the source 4U 1700+24 (trigger #621278). Swift slewed immediately to the location. The BAT on-board calculated location is RA, Dec 256.660, +24.020 which is RA(J2000) = 17h 06m 38s Dec(J2000) = +24d 01' 12" with an uncertainty of 3 arcmin (radius, 90% containment, including systematic uncertainty). As is usual for image triggers, there is no obvious variation in the immediately available BAT lightcurve. The XRT began observing the field at 01:58:04.5 UT, 113.5 seconds after the BAT trigger. XRT found a bright X-ray source located at RA, Dec 256.6412, 23.9734 which is equivalent to: RA(J2000) = +17h 06m 33.89s Dec(J2000) = +23d 58' 24.2" with an uncertainty of 5.3 arcseconds (radius, 90% containment). This location is 178 arcseconds from the BAT onboard position, within the BAT error circle. This position is 9.3 arcseconds from that of a known X-ray source: 4U 1700+24 (also known as V934 Her). No event data are yet available to determine the column density using X-ray spectroscopy. The initial flux in the 2.5 s image was 1.48e-09 erg cm^-2 s^-1 (0.2-10 keV). UVOT took a finding chart exposure of 150 seconds with the White filter starting 122 seconds after the BAT trigger. The 2.7'x2.7' sub-image only shows the bright (V=7.6) known source V934 Her. This symbiotic X-ray binary system was previously observed in outburst by Swift and has been active for roughly the past year (Krimm et al., ATel #6482). A BAT lightcurve of its activity is available at: http://swift.gsfc.nasa.gov/results/transients/weak/4U1700p24/