TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR NUMBER: 12563 SUBJECT: GRB 111117A: NOT observations DATE: 11/11/17 22:57:59 GMT FROM: Antonio Deugarte at IAA-CSIC Michael I. Andersen (DARK), Antonio de Ugarte Postigo (IAA-CSIC and DARK), Giorgos Leloudas (DARK), Johan P. U. Fynbo (DARK) report on behalf of a larger collaboration: Using ALFOSC on the Nordic Optical Telescope (NOT) we have obtained R-band (6 x 300 s) imaging of the field of the Swift GRB 111117A (Mangano et al., GCN 12559), starting on 2011 November 20:49:50 UT (mean epoch 7.88 hours after the burst trigger). The seeing during the observations was around 0.9". In a preliminary reduction we detect a source with a magnitude of R=23.1 +/- 0.3 (based on USNO-B1.0 photometry) at the coordinates (J2000.0 +/- 1"): R.A.: 00:50:46.28 Dec.: +23:00:40.3 This is formally 3.6" from the XRT position and thus outside the XRTerror circle reported in GCN 12559. However we note that it is within the automatically generated SPER error box (http://www.swift.ac.uk/sper/507901/). We therefore suggest that this object is the host galaxy or afterglow of GRB 111117A. We are grateful to the NOT observers, Kristian Vida (Konkoly Observatory) and Heidi Korhonen (U. Copenhagen) for obtaining these observations.