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THE ASTRONOMER Electronic Circular No 2560      2009 Jun 20 11.57UT
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
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GRB 090618 BRIGHT AFTERGLOW AND POSSIBLE ASSOCIATED SUPERNOVA
Further to the announcement on TA E-Circular 2559 regarding the bright 
afterglow of GRB 090618, Peter Birtwhistle of Great Shefford, UK 
responded to our appeal.

He obtained two separate runs, both reduced with USNO B1.0 and 
Astrometrica:

Date/time (UT)           RA (2000) Dec        Mag
2009 06 18.935    19 35 58.674 +78 21 25.00  18.93R
(11.5 mins exposure 22:17-22:32 UT 18 June)
2009 06 18.986    19 35 58.695 +78 21 24.91  19.12R
(10.0 mins exposure 23:34-23:44 UT 18 June)

According to GCN 9537, S. Dado and A. Dar at Technion-Israel Inst. of 
Tech  (arnon@physics.technion.ac.il) expect an associated supernova to 
develop post the GRB event rather akin to SN1998bw. However the 
supernova is predicted to be faint at R=23.9 around 2009 July 10, 22 
days after GRB090618. An appeal has gone out from the GRB community for 
the use of large telescopes to try and detect the supernova similar to 
the search made for GRB 030319.

Further details should appear in next issue of 'The Astronomer' magazine

AAVSO INTERNATIONAL VARIABLE STAR INDEX
We continue to receive a large number of queries during the course of 
each year at TAHQ in the form of various 'suspects' which might 
represent discoveries. However many of these are variable stars which 
may have been announced in a wide variety of publications but not yet 
listed in the GCVS.

Another source which is always worth checking is the AAVSO International 
Variable Star Index which although on the AAVSO website is now also 
searchable in the catalogues at CDS through VizieR:

http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/VizieR?-source=B/vsx

Guy M Hurst