TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR NUMBER: 29289 SUBJECT: GRB 210112A: Swift detection of a burst with an optical counterpart DATE: 21/01/12 01:51:00 GMT FROM: David Palmer at LANL E. Ambrosi (INAF-IASFPA), S. D. Barthelmy (GSFC), A. D'Ai (INAF-IASFPA), V. D'Elia (SSDC), J. A. Kennea (PSU), N. J. Klingler (PSU), S. Laha (GSFC/UMBC/CRESST), A. Y. Lien (GSFC/UMBC), F. E. Marshall (NASA/GSFC), D. M. Palmer (LANL) and M. H. Siegel (PSU) report on behalf of the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory Team: At 01:37:03 UT, the Swift Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) triggered and located GRB 210112A (trigger=1016881). Swift slewed immediately to the burst. The BAT on-board calculated location is RA, Dec 218.999, +33.070 which is RA(J2000) = 14h 36m 00s Dec(J2000) = +33d 04' 13" with an uncertainty of 3 arcmin (radius, 90% containment, including systematic uncertainty). The BAT light curve shows multiple peaks with the larger peak at T+70 sec and duration of ~150 sec. The peak count rate was ~20800 counts/sec (15-350 keV), at ~68 sec after the trigger. The XRT began observing the field at 01:38:18.0 UT, 74.2 seconds after the BAT trigger. XRT found a bright, uncatalogued X-ray source located at RA, Dec 219.0044, 33.0566 which is equivalent to: RA(J2000) = 14h 36m 1.06s Dec(J2000) = +33d 03' 23.8" with an uncertainty of 5.0 arcseconds (radius, 90% containment). This location is 50 arcseconds from the BAT onboard position, within the BAT error circle. No event data are yet available to determine the column density using X-ray spectroscopy. The initial flux in the 0.1 s image was 7.10e-08 erg cm^-2 s^-1 (0.2-10 keV). UVOT took a finding chart exposure of 150 seconds with the White filter starting 82 seconds after the BAT trigger. There is a candidate afterglow in the rapidly available 2.7'x2.7' sub-image at RA(J2000) = 14:36:01.45 = 219.00606 DEC(J2000) = +33:03:15.4 = 33.05428 with a 90%-confidence error radius of about 0.66 arc sec. This position is 9.8 arc sec. from the center of the XRT error circle. The estimated magnitude is 19.52 with a 1-sigma error of about 0.16. No correction has been made for the expected extinction corresponding to E(B-V) of 0.014. Burst Advocate for this burst is E. Ambrosi (elena.ambrosi AT inaf.it). Please contact the BA by email if you require additional information regarding Swift followup of this burst. In extremely urgent cases, after trying the Burst Advocate, you can contact the Swift PI by phone (see Swift TOO web site for information: http://www.swift.psu.edu/)