GCN Circular 23296

P.A. Evans (U. Leicester), J.P. Osborne (U. Leicester), D.N. Burrows
(PSU), J.A. Kennea (PSU), M. Perri (ASDC) and G. Tagliaferri (INAF-OAB)
report on behalf of the Swift-XRT team:

The XRT began observing the field of GRB 181003A at 06:02:32.6 UT,
3089.4 seconds after the BAT trigger. Using promptly downlinked data we
find an uncatalogued X-ray source located at RA, Dec 52.52910,
-33.96445 which is equivalent to:
   RA(J2000)  = 03h 30m 06.98s
   Dec(J2000) = -33d 57' 52.0"
with an uncertainty of 4.5 arcseconds (radius, 90% containment). This
location is 242 arcseconds from the BAT onboard position. This position
may be improved as more data are received; the latest position is
available at http://www.swift.ac.uk/sper.  We cannot determine whether
the source is fading at the present time. As this position is
significantly outside the BAT error circle, it is probably unrelated to
the trigger. 

A power-law fit to a spectrum formed from promptly downlinked event
data gives a column density consistent with the Galactic value of 1.24
x 10^20 cm^-2 (Willingale et al. 2013).