TITLE: GCN GRB OBSERVATION REPORT NUMBER: 3567 SUBJECT: GRB 050525a: ARC 3.5-meter Optical and NIR Observations DATE: 05/07/06 19:00:54 GMT FROM: Don Lamb at U.Chicago GRB 050525a: ARC 3.5-meter Optical and NIR Observations J. Flasher (Colorado), F. Hearty (Colorado), G. Stringfellow (Colorado), J. Walawender (Colorado), D. Q. Lamb (Chicago), D. G. York (Chicago), G. Wallerstein (Washington), V. Woolf (Washington), S. Anderson (Washington), J. Dembicky (APO), J. Barentine (APO), R. McMillan (APO), and B. Ketzeback (APO) report on behalf of the ARC GRB team of the FUN GRB collaboration: We observed the afterglow (Rykoff et al., GCN Circular No. 3465; Malesani et al., GCN Circular No. 3469) of GRB 050525a, a burst localized by Swift/BAT (Band et al., GCN Circular No. 3466; Markwardt et al., GCN Circular No. 3467), on the night of May 24th, using SPIcam and NIC-FPS on the ARC 3.5-meter telescope at Apache Point Observatory. The observation began at 08.33 UT on 25 May 2005 (8.28 hours after the burst) and ended at 11.07 UT on 25 May 2005 (11.02 hours after the burst). The observation consisted of two 300-second exposures each in r, i, and z; and a series of 60-, 60-, 10-, and 10-second exposures in Z, J, H, and Ks, respectively. We have constructed stacked images of the GRB field, corresponding to 10-minute integrations in r, i, z, and Z; and 20-minute integrations in J, H, and Ks. We detect the afterglow in all seven filters, and measure J = 18.3 ± 0.1 at 09:50 UT (the mid-point time of the J-band observation), calibrated relative to the 2MASS stars in the field. NIC-FPS is currently in its commissioning phase. This message may be cited.