GCN Circular 602
Subject
GRB 000301C: HST/STIS CCD Imaging of the field
Date
2000-03-09T23:15:11Z (24 years ago)
From
Andrew S. Fruchter at STScI <fruchter@stsci.edu>
A. Fruchter (STScI), A. Smette (GSFC), T. Gull (GSFC), R. Gibbons,
H. Ferguson, L. Petro, K. Sahu (STScI) for a larger HST GRB Collaboration.
We have imaged the field of GRB 000301C with HST using the STIS CCD
50LP (open) mode. The observations were performed on the 6.22 March
2000 UT with a total exposure time of 1440s. We easily detect the
transient believed to be associated with GRB 000301C (Fynbo et al GCN
570, Bernabei et al. GCN 571). We find a source magnitude of
R=21.5 +/- 0.15 or V=21.9 +/- 0.15, where the error is dominated by
the wide bandpass of the STIS detector and the uncertainty in the color
of the transient (Halpern et al. GCN 585).
The OT is relatively well represented by a point source: any underlying
galaxy would have to have R >~ 24, or be unusually compact for it to
avoid detection in our data. We therefore believe that the apparent
flattening of the light curve in the R band reported by many observers
is not due to an underlying host galaxy but rather is intrinsic to
transient.
The red galaxy to the north east of the transient reported by Rhoads
and Fruchter (GCN 586) is detected in our image; however, there is no
apparent bridge of emission between these two objects. We therefore
now believe it is quite likely that they are unrelated.
The image is available at http://www.stsci.edu/~fruchter/GRB/000301C