TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR NUMBER: 32032 SUBJECT: GRB 220427A: MeerLICHT afterglow observations DATE: 22/05/13 08:01:30 GMT FROM: Simon de Wet at UCT S. de Wet (UCT), D.B. Malesani (Radboud), P.M. Vreeswijk (Radboud) and P.J. Groot (Radboud/UCT/SAAO) report on behalf of the MeerLICHT consortium: Following the detection of GRB 220427A by Swift and its X-ray counterpart (D'Ai et al., GCN 31960), the 0.6m MeerLICHT telescope, located at Sutherland, South Africa obtained a repeating series of 60 s images in the q,u,q,g,q,r,q,i,q,z bands. Observations began at 2022-04-27, 23:41:48 UT, 2 hours 41 minutes after the Swift detection, and continued for a further 4.5 hours. The median seeing was 2" under clear skies. No source is detected at the optical transient position (D'Ai et al., GCN 31960) in any individual 60 s exposure, hence we co-added all the images in each filter and performed forced photometry at the transient position. The afterglow is detected with a SNR of at least 7 in the g,r,i,z and q bands. We report the following upper limit and AB magnitudes, at 3 hours 50 minutes post-trigger: u > 21.83 g = 21.26 +/- 0.11 q = 21.14 +/- 0.09 r = 20.88 +/- 0.12 i = 20.49 +/- 0.13 z = 19.59 +/- 0.15 MeerLICHT is built and run by a consortium consisting of Radboud University, University of Cape Town, the South African Astronomical Observatory, the University of Oxford, the University of Manchester and the University of Amsterdam.