TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR NUMBER: 32967 SUBJECT: GRB221120A: WIRC near-IR imaging of the afterglow candidate DATE: 22/11/22 00:37:56 GMT FROM: Viraj Karambelkar at Indian Inst of Tech,Bombay Viraj Karambelkar (Caltech), Zach Vanderbosch (Caltech), Mansi Kasliwal (Caltech), Igor Andreoni (U. of Maryland) We observed the location of the short duration GRB 221120A (Eyles-Ferris et al., GCN 32955, Tohuvavohu et al., GCN 32959) in the NIR J-band with the Wide-Field Infrared Camera (WIRC, Wilson et al. 2003) on the 200-inch Hale telescope at Palomar Observatory. Observations began on November 21, 2022 at 06:22:07 UT (approx. 9 hours since the Swift detection), and comprise a series of 30x45 second exposures. We detect a faint source centered at RA = 02:45:21.3, Dec = +43:14:35.2 (J2000). Performing forced aperture photometry at the location of this source suggests a J-band magnitude of m_J = 22.0 +/- 0.3 mag (AB). This source is spatially coincident with that reported by Rastinejad et al. (GCN 32965) from archival PS1 images, and also consistent with the position of the LDT afterglow candidate (O'Connor et al., GCN 32957). The magnitude reported above is not corrected for Galactic interstellar reddening E(B-V)~0.08 mag