GRB 080319B - HST observations

GCN 7569

N. R. Tanvir (U. Leicester), A. J. Levan (U. Warwick), A. S. Fruchter, J. Graham (STScI), K. Wiersema, E. Rol (U. Leicester) report on behalf of a larger collaboration:

We obtained observations of GRB 080319B (GCN 7427) with HST/WFPC2 in F606W and F814W filters on 2008 April 7th (2 orbits in each filter).

These data show the fading afterglow at magnitude F(814W_AB)=24.2 and F(606W_AB)=24.5. This fading is consistent within the errors with a continued power-law decline in optical brightness.

PSF subtraction reveals no obvious sign of an underlying host galaxy, although there is what appears to be a separate galaxy 1.5 arcsec to the south, which might be producing one of the foreground absorption systems (GCN 7451).

Further analysis is ongoing.


Cut-out of region around the GRB location in a pseudo true colour image: