GRB 070612A: Optical follow-up

GCN Circular #6526 GRB 070612A: MDM Observations

N. Mirabal, I. D. McGreer, J. P. Halpern (Columbia U.), M. Dietrich, B. M. Peterson (Ohio State U.) report on behalf of the MDM GRB follow-up team: "We observed the candidate optical afterglow of Swift GRB 070612A (Updike et al. GCN 6515, Cenko et al. GCN 6525) using the MDM 2.4m telescope. Preliminary calibration with respect to USNO magnitudes of nearby stars yields r' ~ 19.0 +/- 0.3 on June 13 03:59 UT and i' ~ 18.4 +/- 0.2 on June 13 03:49 UT respectively. These measurements indicate that the afterglow has faded with respect to previous reports."

GCN Circular #6534 GRB 070612A: Rapid Decay

N. Mirabal, I. D. McGreer and J. P. Halpern (Columbia U.) report on behalf of the MDM GRB follow-up team: "We have re-observed the optical afterglow of Swift GRB 070612A (Updike et al. GCN 6515, Cenko et al. GCN 6525) in the R and i' filters using the same instrumental setup as in Mirabal et al. (GCN 6526). Preliminary calibration referenced to the SDSS photometry of field stars (Cool et al. GCN 6510) shows that the afterglow has faded by 1.88 mag since the previous night. This corresponds to a decay rate steeper than ~ -2.5, which might represent the end of an optical flash from reverse shock emission (Meszaros & Rees 1997, ApJ, 306, 301; Sari & Piran 1999, ApJ, 496, L1). Alternatively, the steepening could be the signature of a "jet break". Further observations are encouraged to distinguish between various possibilities."

(J2000) 08h 05m 29.61s, +37° 16′ 15.2″

MDM 2.4m R-band June 13.17 UT

MDM 2.4m i'-band June 13.17 UT

MDM 2.4m R-band June 14.16 UT

MDM 2.4m i'-band June 14.17 UT

MDM 2.4m R-band June 17.16 UT

Ian McGreer mcgreer@astro.columbia.edu	Arlin Crotts arlin@astro.columbia.edu
Jules Halpern jules@astro.columbia.edu	Nestor Mirabal mirabal@astro.columbia.edu
Back to the main MDM GRB page

Last Modified: June 17, 2007	jules@astro.columbia.edu