TITLE: GCN GRB OBSERVATION REPORT NUMBER: 3813 SUBJECT: GRB 050815: ROTSE-III Optical Limits DATE: 05/08/15 21:58:18 GMT FROM: Eli Rykoff at U of Michigan/ROTSE Fang Yuan, E.S. Rykoff (U Mich) report on behalf of the ROTSE collaboration: ROTSE-IIIc, located at the H.E.S.S. site at Mt. Gamsberg, Namibia, responded to GRB 050815 (Swift trigger 150532), producing images beginning 7.2 s after the GCN notice time. An automated response took the first image at 17:25:54.2 UT, 35.5 s after the burst, under fair conditions. We took 10 5-sec, 10 20-sec and 130 60-sec eposures. These unfiltered images are calibrated relative to USNO A2.0 (R). Comparison to the DSS (second epoch) reveals no new sources within the 3-sigma error circle, for both single images and coadding into sets of 10; however, we are limited as the field is severely crowded. Furthermore, we do not detect any new objects in the XRT error circle (Morris et al, GCN 3812). Individual images have limiting magnitudes ranging from 14.9-15.8; we set the following specific limits. start UT end UT t_exp(s) mlim t_start-tGRB(s) Coadd? -------------------------------------------------------------------- 17:25:54.2 17:25:59.2 5 14.9 35.5 N 17:25:54.2 17:27:25.2 91 15.8 35.5 Y 17:27:25.9 17:32:20.9 295 16.1 127.2 Y