TITLE: GCN GRB OBSERVATION REPORT NUMBER: 149 SUBJECT: Optical Observations of the Host Galaxy of GRB 980519 DATE: 98/08/03 17:26:21 GMT FROM: Josh Bloom at CIT J. S. Bloom, S. R. Kulkarni, S. G. Djorgovski, R. R. Gal, A. Eichelberger, D. A. Frail report on behalf of the Caltech/NRAO GRB collaboration: "Data were obtained on the Keck II telescope on July 18, 1998 UT by Kulkarni and P. Groot (U. of Amsterdam) using the LRIS instrument. We confirm the existence of a faint object with R_c= 26.1 +/- 0.3 (July 18.516) at the position of the optical transient of GRB 980519 (GCN #78) and noted recently by Sokolov et al. (GCN 148). The exposure time was 1500 s. Despite excellent seeing conditions (0.6 arcsec, full width at half maximum) we see little evidence for extension of the source, the presumed host of the GRB. In addition, we note the non-detection (Gunn-i > 24.5) of the host on July 29.396 1998 (2400 sec exp; 1.5 arcsec seeing) with COSMIC on the 200-inch Telescope at Palomar. The Keck image of the host of GRB 980519 and secondary standard stars (GCN #87) may be obtained at http://astro.caltech.edu/~jsb/host_grb980519.ps" This message may be cited.