TITLE: GCN GRB OBSERVATION REPORT NUMBER: 2329 SUBJECT: XRF 030723: confirmation of fading optical counterpart DATE: 03/07/26 17:57:23 GMT FROM: Howard E Bond at STScI Howard E. Bond (Space Telescope Science Institute) reports: As noted in (GCN #2316) the error circle of XRF 030723 was imaged with the SMARTS Consortium 1.3m reflector at Cerro Tololo on UT 2003 July 24.080, 24.173, and 24.281. An additional observation was obtained at UT 2003 July 25.414. R-band exposures of 3x300 sec were taken at each epoch The fading of the optical transient reported by Fox et al. (GCN #2323) is confirmed, albeit at low S/N. At July 24.080 the source was unfortunately located on a low-sensitivity region of the CCD. On July 24.173 and 24.281 it had R magnitudes of 21.0 and 20.9 (calibrated against a Landolt standard field, but with uncertainties of at least 0.1 mag). On July 25.414 the transient had faded below detectability and was at least 1 mag fainter than on the previous night. I thank Rebeccah Winnick, David Gonzalez, and Juan Espinoza for arranging and executing the observations on very short notice.