TITLE:   GCN CIRCULAR
NUMBER:  5046
SUBJECT: GRB 060501: MDM Observations
DATE:    06/05/01 22:34:01 GMT
FROM:    Jules Halpern at Columbia U.  <jules@astro.columbia.edu>

J. P. Halpern (Columbia U.) and N. Mirabal (U. Michigan) report:

"We observed the error box of Swift GRB 060501 (La Parola et al., GCN 5040)
in the R band on the MDM 1.3m telescope starting on May 01 08:28 UT, 
13.4 minutes after the trigger, and continuing until 11:39 UT.  Because
of poor seeing at high airmass, we were only able to detect the candidate
afterglow (Fox & Cenko, GCN 5044) near the possible X-ray afterglow
(La Parola et al., GCN 5042) beginning at 09:01 UT, or 46 minutes post-burst.
While the candidate is clearly distinguished from nearby brighter stars,
one of which was apparently measured by Milne (GCN 5045), it was not
clearly variable during the monitoring period.  Although it is difficult
to measure due to contamination from nearby stars, we estimate R~20.7.
Also, because of the nearby stars, it is not possible to rule out that
it is present at this level on the POSS II, and the DSS R and I images
show a hint of it.

A finding chart for the candidate from the MDM images is available at

http://www.astro.columbia.edu/~jules/grb/060501/mdm.jpg

This message may be cited."