TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR NUMBER: 4532 SUBJECT: GRB 060116: VLT optical observations DATE: 06/01/17 05:59:55 GMT FROM: Daniele Malesani at SISSA-ISAS,Trieste,Italy P. D'Avanzo (INAF/OABr), D. Malesani (SISSA/ISAS), L.A. Antonelli (INAF/OABr), report on behalf of the MISTICI collaboration: We observed the field of GRB 060116 (Campana et al., GCN 4519; Barthelmy et al., GCN 4531) with the ESO-VLT UT2 equipped with FORS 1. Observations were carried out in the R and I filters, starting on Jan 17.069 UT (17 h after the burst). The object reported by Kocevski, Bloom & McGrath (GCN 4528) is not detected in our images down to a limiting magnitude I > 24.5 and R > 24.9 (3 sigma, calibrated against the USNO-B1 catalog). Our non detection indicates that the candidate object by Kocevski et al. (GCN 4528) is very likely the J-band afterglow of GRB 060116, which faded significantly between the two observations. We further note a faint, red object inside the XRT error box (Campana et al., GCN 4522, 4529), at the coordinates (0.3" arcsec error): alpha(J2000) = 05:38:46.170; delta(J2000) = -05:26:15.08. This is 2.5" away of the afterglow position (Kocevski et al., GCN 4528). A finding chart in the I filter is posted at the following URL: http://www.merate.mi.astro.it/~davanzo/GRB/grb060116_find_I.jpeg This message can be cited. [GCN OPS NOTE(18jan06): Per author's request, the affiliation was added to the Malesani author.]