TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR NUMBER: 31685 SUBJECT: GRB 220305A: Swift-XRT observations DATE: 22/03/05 17:44:49 GMT FROM: Phil Evans at U of Leicester D.N. Burrows (PSU), J.A. Kennea (PSU), S. Campana (INAF-OAB), G. Cusumano (INAF-IASF PA), P.A. Evans (U. Leicester) and J.P. Osborne (U. Leicester) report on behalf of the Swift-XRT team: The XRT began observing the field of GRB 220305A at 17:03:25.5 UT, 3016.9 seconds after the BAT trigger. Using promptly downlinked data we find a fading, uncatalogued X-ray source located at RA, Dec 107.59841, -37.68016 which is equivalent to: RA(J2000) = 07h 10m 23.62s Dec(J2000) = -37d 40' 48.6" with an uncertainty of 3.8 arcseconds (radius, 90% containment). This location is 108 arcseconds from the BAT onboard position, within the BAT error circle. This position may be improved as more data are received; the latest position is available at https://www.swift.ac.uk/sper. A power-law fit to a spectrum formed from promptly downlinked event data gives a column density in excess of the Galactic value (2.59 x 10^21 cm^-2, Willingale et al. 2013), with an excess column of 8.1 (+6.60/-5.31) x 10^21 cm^-2 (90% confidence).