TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR NUMBER: 13662 SUBJECT: GRB 120817A: Swift-XRT observations DATE: 12/08/17 08:45:10 GMT FROM: Phil Evans at U of Leicester M. Perri (ASDC), G. Tagliaferri (INAF-OAB), P.A. Evans (U. Leicester), J.P. Osborne (U. Leicester), D.N. Burrows (PSU) and J.A. Kennea (PSU) report on behalf of the Swift-XRT team: The XRT began observing the field of GRB 120817A at 07:41:33.5 UT, 3110.8 seconds after the BAT trigger. Using promptly downlinked data we find an uncatalogued X-ray source located at RA, Dec 250.69098, -38.35404 which is equivalent to: RA(J2000) = 16h 42m 45.84s Dec(J2000) = -38d 21' 14.5" with an uncertainty of 4.2 arcseconds (radius, 90% containment). This location is 65 arcseconds from the BAT onboard position, within the BAT error circle. This position may be improved as more data are received; the latest position is available at http://www.swift.ac.uk/sper. We cannot determine whether the source is fading at the present time. A power-law fit to a spectrum formed from promptly downlinked event data gives a column density consistent with the Galactic value of 2.88 x 10^21 cm^-2 (Kalberla et al. 2005).