TITLE:   GCN GRB OBSERVATION REPORT
NUMBER:  279
SUBJECT: GRB990316, Optical observations
DATE:    99/03/19 12:11:31 GMT
FROM:    Ion-Alexis Yadigaroglu at Columbia U  <ion@astro.columbia.edu>

I.-A. Yadigaroglu, C. Liu & J. P. Halpern (Columbia U.), H. E. Bond (STScI)
report on behalf of the MDM Observatory GRB follow-up team:
 
"We imaged in the V band the location of the LOTIS optical candidate (GCN
277) for GRB 990316 on Mar 19.22 using the MDM Observatory 2.4m telescope. 
A total of 40 minutes exposure was obtained in seeing of 1.0 arcsec. The
image was compared to an image of the same region obtained the previous
night at the KPNO 4m telescope (GCN 278). No fading objects are found in
a conservative 2 arcmin radius around the LOTIS position. A calibration
using a Landolt standard gives plate limits of 23.9 and 23.0 for the Mar
19.22 and 18.28 images respectively. For reference, the magnitudes of two
nearby stars are V = 20.25 at (J2000) RA 9:50:14.6, Dec -4:56:32.3, and
V = 20.14 at RA 9:50:14.9, Dec -4:56:56.3. An asteroid with V = 22.6 is
detected on Mar 18.28 an arcminute away from the LOTIS position."

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