TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR NUMBER: 7302 SUBJECT: GRB 080212: REM NIR afterglow? DATE: 08/02/13 08:02:40 GMT FROM: Paolo D'Avanzo at INAF-OAB P. D'Avanzo, L.A. Antonelli, S. Covino, D. Fugazza, L. Calzoletti, S. Campana, G. Chincarini, M.L. Conciatore, S. Cutini, V. D'Elia, F. Dalessio, F. Fiore, P. Goldoni, D. Guetta, C. Guidorzi, G.L. Israel, N. Masetti, A. Melandri, E. Meurs, L. Nicastro, E. Palazzi, E. Pian, S. Piranomonte, L. Stella, G. Stratta, G. Tagliaferri, G. Tosti, V.Testa, S.D. Vergani, F. Vitali report on behalf of the REM team: The robotic 60-cm REM telescope located at La Silla (Chile) observed automatically the field of the GRB 080212 (Ziaeepour et al., GCN 7296). A preliminary analysis of the first set of H-band exposures does reveal the presence of an object with H ~ 15.2 inside the XRT error box (Goad et al., GCN 7300) at the following coordinates (J2000): R.A. = 15:24:35.49 Dec. = -22:44:29.0 with an uncertainty of 0.3". This position lies about 3.2" (East direction) far from the position of the DSS galaxy (Berger, GCN 7294). This object could thus be the NIR afterglow of GRB 080212. The 3sigma upper limit of our image is H > 15.7 (calibrated against the 2MASS catalog). Further analysis is in progress.