TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR NUMBER: 13520 SUBJECT: GRB 120724A: optical observation in Maidanak observatory DATE: 12/07/26 19:48:38 GMT FROM: Alexei Pozanenko at IKI, Moscow A. Pozanenko (IKI), A. Sergeev (Institute of Radio Astronomy of NASU), A. Volnova (SAI MSU), O. Burhonov (UBAI), I. Molotov (KIAM) report on behalf GRB follow-up collaboration: We observed the field of Swift GRB 120724A (D'Avanzo et al., GCN 13510) with AZT-22 telescope of Maidanak observatory starting on Jul. 24 (UT) 15:55:51 under mean seeing (FWHM) of about 1.1 arcsec. Totally we obtained 4 images of 600 s exposure in R filter. At the edge of the enhanced XRT position (Goad et al., GCN 13515) we detected the object with coordinates (J2000) 16 20 43.28 +03 30 27.1 (uncertainty of 0.12 arcsec in both coordinates), which is slightly apart from coordinates of the OT reported earlier (Guidorzi et al., GCN 13511; Holland et al., GCN 13516). Since the object is also visible in stacked DSS images (R+I) we suggest it is a possible host galaxy of GRB 120724A. A preliminary photometry of the object is based on USNO-B1.0 nearby stars: T0+ Filter, Exposure, OT (mid, d) (s) 0.42252 R 3x600 20.97 +/- 0.09 A finding chart can be found at http://grb.rssi.ru/GRB120724A/GRB120724A_AZT22&DSS.png