------------------------------------------------------------------- THE ASTRONOMER Electronic Circular No 2269 2006 Oct 07 12.27UT 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 Backup: gmh@wdcc1.bnsc.rl.ac.uk WORLD WIDE WEB http://www.theastronomer.org ------------------------------------------------------------------- GRB 061007 AND BRIGHT OPTICAL COUNTERPART Patricia Schady (MSSL-UCL) at MSSL/Swift reports on GCN Circular 5707 the discovery of GRB 061007 as follows: At 10:08:08 UT, the Swift Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) triggered and located GRB 061007 (trigger=232683). Swift slewed immediately to the burst. The BAT on-board calculated location is: RA03h 05m 16s DEC -50 29' 15" (2000) with an uncertainty of 3 arcmin. The BAT light curve showed a multi-peaked structure with a duration of about 100 sec. The peak count rate was ~25000 counts/sec (15-350 keV), at ~54 sec after the trigger. The XRT began observing the field at 10:09:29 UT, 80 seconds after the BAT trigger. XRT found a bright, fading, uncatalogued X-ray source located at RA 03h 05m 19.5s DEC-50 30' 02.1" (2000), with an estimated uncertainty of 7.5 arcseconds (90% confidence radius). This location is 55 arcseconds from the BAT on-board position, within the BAT error circle. UVOT took a finding chart exposure of 400 seconds with the V filter starting 195 seconds after the BAT trigger. There is a very bright source in the 2.7' x 2.7' sub-image not present in DSS at: RA 03:05:19.51 DEC -50:30:02.5 (2000) with a 1-sigma error radius of about 0.5 arc sec. This position is 0.7 arc sec. from the centre of the XRT error circle. The estimated magnitude is 12.8 with a 1-sigma error of about 0.5 mag. No correction has been made for the expected extinction of about 0.1 magnitudes. Editor: The object is in the deep south but we urge any of our overseas subscribers in the southern hemisphere to try and image the counterpart and report back to us. Guy M Hurst