TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR NUMBER: 2143 SUBJECT: GRB 030329: SARA Optical Observations DATE: 03/04/16 19:40:11 GMT FROM: Kevin Lindsay at Clemson.U K. Lindsay, D. H. Hartmann (Clemson University) A. Henden (USNO), A. Zeh, S. Klose (Tautenburg) Report on behalf of a larger collaboration: We observed the optical afterglow of GRB 030329, (=H2656, Vanderspek et al., GCN 1997), identified by Peterson & Price (GCN 1985) and Torii (GCN 1986). Observations were made on Tuesday April 8, 2003 with the SARA 0.9m telescope at KPNO. Sixty 300s exposures were taken in the B Band. Observations began at 03:07:27 UT and ended at 08:23:12 UT. All observations were carried out under relatively good seeing conditions. Aperture photometry was carried out based on the calibration by Henden (GCN 2082). We find an average magnitude of B= 19.8 +/- 0.1. Comparison with observations carried out at USNO and our previous observations with SARA indicate that the afterglow was approximately 0.5 magnitudes brighter than predicted from previous nights. This deviation is consistant with the excess light due to the underlying SN (Zeh et al., GCN 2081). The SARA observations discussed herein were in part made possible by generous contributions of telescope time from Dr. J. Webb, E. Howard, Dr. M. Leake, M. Williams and Dr. S. Shaw. More information on the SARA Observatory can be found at http://www.saraobservatory.org/. This report may be cited.