TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR NUMBER: 6542 SUBJECT: GRB 070616: Swift detection of a burst DATE: 07/06/16 17:02:59 GMT FROM: Scott Barthelmy at NASA/GSFC R. L. C. Starling (U Leicester), S. D. Barthelmy (GSFC), A. P. Beardmore (U Leicester), D. N. Burrows (PSU), P. A. Evans (U Leicester), N. Gehrels (NASA/GSFC), C. Guidorzi (Univ Bicocca&INAF-OAB), J. A. Kennea (PSU), C. B. Markwardt (CRESST/GSFC/UMD), F. E. Marshall (NASA/GSFC), P. T. O'Brien (U Leicester), J. P. Osborne (U Leicester), K. L. Page (U Leicester), D. M. Palmer (LANL), A. M. Parsons (GSFC), G. Sato (GSFC/ISAS), M. Stamatikos (NASA/ORAU), D. E. Vanden Berk (PSU) and L. Vetere (PSU) report on behalf of the Swift Team: At 16:29:33 UT, the Swift Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) triggered and located GRB 070616 (trigger=282445). Swift slewed immediately to the burst. The BAT on-board calculated location is RA, Dec 32.155, +56.948 which is RA(J2000) = 02h 08m 37s Dec(J2000) = +56d 56' 53" with an uncertainty of 3 arcmin (radius, 90% containment, including systematic uncertainty). The BAT light curve shows nothing much around T_zero (as is typical for image triggers). We note that there is bright and variable activity in the TDRSS lightcurve starting at T+100 sec and lasting to 600 sec. This may be long-term burst activity, although we can not rule out a contribution from a bright galactic source such as Cyg X-1 coming into the FOV (due to the slew). We will be able to separate this ambiguity when we get the full Malindi data to construct a mask-weighted lightcurve. The XRT began observing the field at 16:31:44 UT, 131 seconds after the BAT trigger. XRT found a bright, variable and fading, uncatalogued X-ray source. Using prompt downlinked data we find a position of located at RA, Dec 32.1513, +56.9451 which is RA(J2000) = 02h 08m 36.3s Dec(J2000) = 56d 56' 42.5" with an uncertainty of 4.9 arcseconds (radius, 90% containment). This location is 12.7 arcseconds from the BAT on-board position, within the BAT error circle. The initial flux in the 2.5s image was 7.6e-09 erg/cm2/s (0.2-10 keV). We note that this is 3.1 arcseconds from source USNO-B1.0 1469-0076513. UVOT took a finding chart exposure of 100 seconds with the White (160-650 nm) filter starting 142 seconds after the BAT trigger. No afterglow candidate has been found in the initial data products. The 2.7'x2.7' sub-image covers 100% of the XRT error circle. The typical 3-sigma upper limit has been about 18.5 mag. The 8'x8' region for the list of sources generated on-board covers 100% of the XRT error circle. The list of sources is typically complete to about 18 mag. No correction has been made for the large, but uncertain extinction expected.