TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR NUMBER: 6525 SUBJECT: GRB 070612A: P60 Confirmation of Afterglow and An Underlying, Nearby DATE: 07/06/12 22:15:19 GMT FROM: S. Bradley Cenko at Caltech S. B. Cenko, E. O. Ofek (Caltech) and D. B. Fox (Penn State) report on behalf of a larger collaboration: We have imaged the field of GRB 070612A (Grupe et al., GCN 6509) with the automated Palomar 60-inch telescope. Images were taken in the Sloan i' filter beginning at 4:27:29 12 June UT (~ 1.8 hr after the burst) at large airmass (> 2.5). Inside the BAT error circle we identify a bright, stationary, variable source located at coordinates (J2000.0): RA: 08:05:29.61 Dec: +37:16:15.2 The object increases in brightness over the duration of our exposure, ranging from i' = 16.97 in our first image to i' = 16.27 approximately 2.2 hours after the burst. Given the brightness, we consider it likely this is the same candidate proposed by Updike et al. (GCN 6515), despite the fact that their position differs from ours by ~ 14". Furthermore, as first noted by this group, there is a faint galaxy underlying the OT visible in the SDSS images of this field (Cool et al., GCN 6510) located at RA: 08:05:29.64, Dec: +37:16:14.6 (J2000.0). The photometric redshift, taken from the SDSS database, for this putative host is z = 0.096 +/- 0.023. Altogether, GRB 070612A has 1) a very long duration (t90 ~ 370 s; Barthelmy et al., GCN 6522), 2) a bright, rising optical afterglow at t ~ 2 hr, and 3) an underlying, nearby (z ~ 0.1) putative host galaxy. In all these ways it is similar to XRF 060218. Despite its proximity to the sun (~ 38 degrees away and setting), we encourage follow-up observations at all wavelengths while still possible to further investigate this interesting source and search for signs of an associated supernova.