TITLE: GCN GRB OBSERVATION REPORT NUMBER: 1912 SUBJECT: GRB 030228, optical observations DATE: 03/03/01 19:12:58 GMT FROM: Peter Garnavich at U of Notre Dame K. von Braun (DTM), P. Garnavich (Notre Dame), K. Stanek (CfA) We imaged the error circle of the INTEGRAL trigger 225 with the 1-m Swope telescope on Mar. 1.38 (UT) which is 11 hours after the burst. A single 600s exposure was obtained in the I-band. This is a low Galactic latitude field but extinction in this direction is only 0.6 mag in the I-band based on the Schlegel, Finkbeiner & Davis (1998, ApJ, 500, 525) maps. Stellar crowding limits the detection threshold to rather bright magnitudes. Compared with the digitized sky survey IR plate we find no new sources within the 10' diameter error circle down to I=19 based on a rough calibration with a Landolt standard field. We do find an existing star which is significantly brighter in our CCD image than on the DSS plate at 17:56:44.46 -37:52:57 (2000) which we identify as the infrared source IRAS 17533-3752 and its detection is probably due to a combination of a large IR excess and a filter mismatch. This message may be cited.