TITLE:   GCN CIRCULAR
NUMBER:  20322
SUBJECT: GRB 161219B:  SALT observations
DATE:    16/12/21 17:29:49 GMT
FROM:    Soebur Razzaque at U of Johannesburg  <srazzaque@uj.ac.za>

D.A.H. Buckley (SAAO/SALT), A. Hamanowicz (Warsaw U.), A. Martin-Carrillo (UCD), S. Razzaque (U. Johannesburg), T. Garrigoux (North-West U.), L. Hanlon (UCD), M. M. Kotze (SAAO/SALT) and R. Kuhn (SAAO/SALT) report on behalf of a larger collaboration.

We observed the Swift GRB 161219B (D’Ai et al. GCN 20296) on December 20 using the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) in Sutherland, South Africa, 24.73 h after the Swift GRB trigger. A 20 s r'-band image was obtained using SALTICAM at 19:32:30 UTC, just prior to the commencement of the spectroscopy, and the optical counterpart reported by D'Ai et al. (GCN 20296), Kruehler et al. (GCN 20299), Guidorzi et al. (GCN 20300), Martin-Carrillo et al. (GCN 20305), Mazaeva et a. (GCN 20309), Tanvir et al. (GCN 20321) was clearly visible in the SALT image.

From photometry of the source and six APASS reference stars in the field, we determined the brightness to be r' = 18.94 +/- 0.06. Spectroscopy with the Robert Stobie Spectrograph (RSS) started at 19:37:39 UTC and ran until 20:27:51 UTC during which two 1500 s spectra were obtained, nominally covering the spectral region from 340 to 1000 nm at a mean resolution of R = 350. The optical spectrum was characterised by a blue continuum and was heavily contaminated by sky emission lines above 850 nm. No obvious spectral faetures were seen in the combined spectrum.
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