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S.A. Yost, E.S. Rykoff (U Michigan), R. Quimby (U Texas), B. Schaefer (Louisiana State U), F. Aharonian (MPI), C.W. Akerlof (U Michigan), M.C.B. Ashley (U. New South Wales), D. Bizyaev (U Texas), D. Casperson (LANL), T. Guver (U Istanbul), D. Horns (MPI), U. Kiziloglu (U Istanbul), T.A. McKay (U Michigan), M.E. Ozel (U Istanbul), M.A. Phillips (U. New South Wales), D.A. Smith, H.F. Swan (U Michigan), W.T. Vestrand (LANL), J.C. Wheeler (U Texas), J. Wren (LANL)
ROTSE is a network of 4 robotic 0.45m optical telescopes designed to look for early optical emission from gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) by rapidly responding to automated Internet alerts. It has a typical response of ~8s from the generation of the trigger and, with the Swift satellite's realtime alerts, ROTSE's speed allows it to explore a unique time window of GRB behavior. In the case of GRB 050319, ROTSE began observations at 27s following the initial rise of gamma-ray emission, 13s after the end of the gamma-ray burst, and one minute before the Swift satellite completed its automatic repositioning to begin its optical observations. We detected a fading transient, confirmed to be the GRB counterpart. We present our early lightcurve of the GRB 050319 afterglow.
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 37 #2
© 2005. The American Astronomical Soceity.