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THE ASTRONOMER Electronic Circular No 1811      2002 Oct 05 18.42UT
Ed:Guy M Hurst, 16,Westminster Close, Kempshott Rise,  Basingstoke,
Hants, RG22 4PP,England.Telephone/FAX(01256)471074Int:+441256471074
INTERNET: GUY@TAHQ.DEMON.CO.UK             GMH at AST.STAR.RL.AC.UK
WORLD WIDE WEB                         http://www.theastronomer.org
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GRB 021004
Further to the preliminary alert on TA E-Circular 1810, reports have
been received from Nick James, Martin Mobberley, Peter Birtwhistle,
David Strange, Mark Armstrong, Eddie Guscott and Tom Boles that they
successfully recorded the presumed optical afterglow from GRB 021004
which was originally HETE Trigger 2380 issued on Oct 4 at
12:06:13.57UT.

As we believe these to be the first successful observations of this
type of object from the UK we offer our sincere congratulations to
all these observers.

In addition Arto Oksanen, observing from Nyrola Observatory in
Finland reports his successful imaging of this OT. 

Further background detail: 
D.W. Fox reports on behalf of the Caltech-NRAO GRB Collaboration:  
We have observed the error box of GRB021004 with the 48-inch
Oschin/NEAT robotic telescope at Palomar Observatory, with three
60-second integrations beginning at 12:15:11, 12:17:45, and
12:22:52UT on October 4.  We identify a new, stationary, fading,
point-like object by comparison with the Digitized Sky Survey.  The
object coordinates are: RA 00:26:54.689, Dec +18:55:41.3   (J2000)
with an uncertainty of less than 0.5" in each coordinate.  Deriving
an R-band photometric zero-point for our unfiltered observations by
reference to the USNO star at 00:26:58.713 +18:56:56.61, which we
assume to have magnitude R=15.3, we find object magnitudes: 
12:15:41 UT   567 s   15.34 mag
12:18:15      721     15.49
12:23:22     1028     15.78
GCN 1564

M. Uemura, R. Ishioka, T. Kato (Kyoto U.) and H. Yamaoka (Kyushu U.)
report on behalf of VSNET-GRB collaboration:
We are observing the WXM error box of GRB 021004 (GCN 1565) from
Oct. 4 12:41 UT with 0.30-m telescope (+unfiltered CCD) at Kyoto
University.  First 30sec * 52 exposure were obtained until 13:16 UT.
An inspection of a integrated image reveal the optical afterglow
candidate (Fox et al., GCN 1564) at R mag about 16.3, which confirms
further rapid decline of this object.
GCN 1566 

Nick James e-mails a precise position:
2002 10 04.79809 00 26 54.712 +18 55 42.38          18.3
He adds that the magnitude of 18.3 is probably incorrect since this
used GSC-ACT reference stars. He has also placed a light curve at:
http://www.theastronomer.org/grb/grb021004_lightcurve_20021004_ndj.g
if
The mag fit is: 18.98 + 2.68 log10(d) where d is the number of days
since outburst.

Tom Boles reports astrometry from three images of 2002 Oct 04.8739UT
RA 00h 26m 54.67s      dRA = + 0.31
Dec +18 55' 42.1"      dDe = 0.38               R = 17.8         

Peter Birtwhistle reports a measured drop in magnitude between the
mean of seven images centred on 2002 Oct 04 21:06UT and a further
five images centred on Oct 05 03:01UT of 0.96 mags.

Guy M Hurst