(meteorobs) Swift Sees 5th Magn. GRB!

[George Gliba]

Fellow Observers,

     Last night the NASA SWIFT spacecraft saw the most extrinsically 
luminous
Gamma-ray Burst ever known. Some ground based telescopes recorded the visual
optical afterglow to be 5th magnitude!

    Recently I talked to Dr. Chris Shrader who told me about it, as he 
is on the Swift
team. After confirming it with ASD science writer Robert Naeye, he told 
me that it
has a redshift of 0.9, which translates into a distance of 7 billion 
light years! Robert
has notified the AAVSO to see if there were any visual variable star 
observers who
may have seen it. Perhaps some meteor observers saw it or it was seen 
with a video
camera. The time was 6:10 to 6:13 UT March 19, in Bootes. Below is the 
exact location
as reported by the NASA Swift team member Stephen Holland.

The coordinates for the optical afterglow of GRB 080319B are:

RA(J2000.0) =  14:31:40.97
Dec(J2000.0) = +36:18:07.9

Steven adds:

With an estimated uncertainty of ±0.5 arcseconds.  I would be very 
interested in knowing if anyone managed to observe this.  Such 
observations may even have a scientific value in that they would help 
pin down the exact shape of the light curve.

GWG