Astron. Astrophys. 327, L36-L38 (1997)

Letter to the Editor

The optical transient of GRB970228, 16 hours after the burst

F. Pedichini ¹, A. Di Paola ¹, L. Stella ^{1, 2}, R. Buonanno ¹, A. Boattini ¹, G. Gandolfi ³, E. Costa ⁴, M. Feroci ⁴, L. Piro ⁴, D. Dal Fiume ⁵, F. Frontera ^{5, 6}, L. Nicastro ⁵, E. Palazzi ⁵, J. Heise ⁷, J. in't Zand ⁷ and M. Vietri <sup>8

1</sup> Osservatorio Astronomico di Roma, Via dell'Osservatorio 2, I-00040 Monteporzio Catone (Roma), Italy
(e-mail: pedik, dipaola, stella, buonanno, boattini@coma.mporzio.astro.it)
² Affiliated to the International Center for Relativistic Astrophysics
³ Beppo-SAX Scientific Data Centre, Via Corcolle 19, I-00131 Roma, Italy (e-mail: gandolfi@napa.sdc.asi.it)
⁴ Istituto Astrofisica Spaziale, C. N. R., Via E. Fermi 21, I-00044 Frascati (Roma), Italy (e-mail: costa, feroci, piro@saturn.ias.fra.cnr.it)
⁵ Istituto TeSRE, C. N. R., Via P. Gobetti 101, I-40129 Bologna , Italy (e-mail: dalfiume, filippo, nicastro, palazzi@tesre.bo.cnr.it)
⁶ Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Ferrara, Via Paradiso 12, I-44100 Ferrara, Italy
⁷ Space Research Organisation in the Netherlands, Sorbonnelaan 2, 3584 CA Utrecht, The Netherlands (e-mail: jheise, jeanz@sron.ruu.nl)
⁸ Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Roma 3, Via della Vasca Navale 84, I-00146 Roma, Italy (e-mail: vietri@corelli.fis.uniroma3.it)

Received 10 July 1997 / Accepted 2 September 1997

Abstract

Until recently the positions of gamma ray bursts were not sufficiently well known within a short timescale to localize and identify them with known celestial sources. Following the historical detection of the X-ray afterglow of the burst GRB970228, extending from 30 s to 3  days after the main peak, by the Beppo-SAX satellite (Costa et al. 1997), and that of an optical transient  hr after the burst (van Paradijs et al. 1997, hereafter VP), we report here the detection of the same optical transient, in images obtained  hr hours earlier than in VP.

Key words: X-ray Gamma Ray Burst Optical Transient

SIMBAD Objects

Contents

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• References

© European Southern Observatory (ESO) 1997

Online publication: April 6, 1998
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