TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR NUMBER: 28124 SUBJECT: GRB 200716C: Swift detection of a burst with an optical counterpart DATE: 20/07/16 23:10:50 GMT FROM: David Palmer at LANL T. N. Ukwatta (LANL), S. D. Barthelmy (GSFC), A. P. Beardmore (U Leicester), J.D. Gropp (PSU), N. J. Klingler (PSU), A. Y. Lien (GSFC/UMBC), F. E. Marshall (NASA/GSFC), K. L. Page (U Leicester), D. M. Palmer (LANL) and B. Sbarufatti (PSU) report on behalf of the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory Team: At 22:57:41 UT, the Swift Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) triggered and located GRB 200716C (trigger=982707). Swift slewed immediately to the burst. The BAT on-board calculated location is RA, Dec 196.013, +29.630 which is RA(J2000) = 13h 04m 03s Dec(J2000) = +29d 37' 47" with an uncertainty of 3 arcmin (radius, 90% containment, including systematic uncertainty). The BAT light curve showed a multi-peaked structure with a duration of about 10 sec. The peak count rate was ~30000 counts/sec (15-350 keV), at ~0 sec after the trigger. The XRT began observing the field at 22:59:04.2 UT, 82.9 seconds after the BAT trigger. XRT found a bright, uncatalogued X-ray source located at RA, Dec 196.0100, 29.6465 which is equivalent to: RA(J2000) = 13h 04m 2.40s Dec(J2000) = +29d 38' 47.4" with an uncertainty of 6.6 arcseconds (radius, 90% containment). This location is 60 arcseconds from the BAT onboard position, within the BAT error circle. No event data are yet available to determine the column density using X-ray spectroscopy. The initial flux in the 0.1 s image was 1.10e-08 erg cm^-2 s^-1 (0.2-10 keV). UVOT took a finding chart exposure of 150 seconds with the White filter starting 93 seconds after the BAT trigger. There is a candidate afterglow in the rapidly available 2.7'x2.7' sub-image at RA(J2000) = 13:04:02.43 = 196.01011 DEC(J2000) = +29:38:40.6 = 29.64460 with a 90%-confidence error radius of about 0.75 arc sec. This position is 6.85 arc sec. from the center of the XRT error circle. The estimated magnitude is 16.34 with a 1-sigma error of about 0.14. No correction has been made for the expected extinction corresponding to E(B-V) of 0.01. Burst Advocate for this burst is T. N. Ukwatta (tilan.ukwatta AT gmail.com). Please contact the BA by email if you require additional information regarding Swift followup of this burst. In extremely urgent cases, after trying the Burst Advocate, you can contact the Swift PI by phone (see Swift TOO web site for information: http://www.swift.psu.edu/)