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On Sun, 21 Sep 2003, Arne Henden wrote: > I think it is premature to assume the Keck object that you > marked is your faded optical transient. On the Keck image, this > object looks extended, as it does on my poorer resolution V-band image; > this looks like a galaxy to me. Yes, Kato and I noted that is the likely type. But, the key point is that galaxy was a lot brighter when you took the image (WHAT TIME?) than whne Keck took it. If it was a quiescent galaxy, I doubt anything would have been seen on your image because it is just barely visible on the Keck! > It sure would have been nice to have at least one CCD image on the > first night; perhaps ASAS covered this field after the outburst (I know > Kato-san indicated an image 0.17d earlier). Yes, in hindsight I should have called Keck then. But when I announced it here, I expected folks would try putting CCD on it right away. Why nothing came out of Japan that whole night is a mystery - bad weather?? > There is only one "GRB" satellite (HETE-2), which runs continuously > but which only covers a portion of the full sky. It points antisolar > and so was covering your region at the time. It has not seen any > bursts since September 14. There are several other satellites that > carry gamma-ray detectors, but either not covering the full sky, or > with low sensitivity, so you cannot count on the non-detection as > meaning no gamma-ray burst took place for any random location. > However, the HETE non-detection in this case is pretty good evidence. Yes, it appears HETE was looking right at it. Any possibility the system was "down" at that time??? Actually, the rapid decline in flux seems uncharacteristic of the power-law drop of the classic GRB anyway? > I think the jury is out regarding what you saw. Obviously, > a 14th magnitude asteroid is either well-known or a NEO which would > have shown movement. Any kind of flare star doesn't have that > kind of amplitude if your position is correct (if instead it was > coincident with the 155 comp, then we could be suspicious of > that star). A new CV could possibly have that kind of range, Well, at first I thought this was a flare or outburst of 155! But, I double checked the position over 3 hours many times, and I agree with Simonsen that it was further south. The error box I drew on my webpage was made shortly afterwards and is the best recollection. Obviously visual of a faint object without any nearby references is gonna give poor astrometry, as I went solely on the angle between the 136/137 and distance between. > but the field is pretty blank. Your best bet is if you can get > another set of images from Keck tonight. That was a one-time special deal. I will try some other scopes up there, but it will take longer integrations to match, which will work against my request. Mike
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