TITLE:   GCN CIRCULAR
NUMBER:  7569
SUBJECT: GRB 080319B: HST observations
DATE:    08/04/08 00:55:27 GMT
FROM:    Nial Tanvir at IofA U.Cambridge  <nrt@ast.cam.ac.uk>

N. R. Tanvir (U. Leicester), A. J. Levan (U. Warwick),
A. S. Fruchter, J. Graham (STScI), K. Wiersema, E. Rol (U. Leicester)
report on behalf of a larger collaboration:

We obtained observations of GRB 080319B (GCN 7427) with HST/WFPC2 in
F606W and F814W filters on 2008 April 7th (2 orbits in each filter).

These data show the fading afterglow at magnitude F(814W_AB)=24.2
and F(606W_AB)=24.5.  This fading is consistent within
the errors with a continued power-law decline in optical
brightness.

PSF subtraction reveals no obvious sign of an underlying host galaxy,
although there is what appears to be a separate galaxy 1.5 arcsec to
the south, which might be producing one of the foreground absorption
systems (GCN 7451).

A colour image showing the field around the GRB is available at:

 http://www.star.le.ac.uk/~nrt3/080319b.html

Further analysis is ongoing.