TITLE:   GCN CIRCULAR
NUMBER:  16547
SUBJECT: GRB 140709A: RATIR Optical and NIR Observations
DATE:    14/07/09 06:49:03 GMT
FROM:    Nat Butler at Az State U  <natbutler@asu.edu>

Nat Butler (ASU), Alan M. Watson (UNAM), Alexander Kutyrev (GSFC), William
H. Lee (UNAM), Michael G. Richer (UNAM), Chris Klein (UCB), Ori Fox (UCB),
J. Xavier Prochaska (UCSC), Josh Bloom (UCB), Antonino Cucchiara
(ORAU/GSFC), Eleonora Troja (GSFC), Owen Littlejohns (ASU), Enrico
Ramirez-Ruiz (UCSC), José A. de Diego (UNAM), Leonid Georgiev (UNAM), Jesús
González (UNAM), Carlos Román-Zúñiga (UNAM), Neil Gehrels (GSFC), and
Harvey Moseley (GSFC) report:

We observed the field of GRB 140709A (Hagen, et al., GCN 16546) with the
Reionization and Transients Infrared Camera (RATIR; www.ratir.org) on the
1.5m Harold Johnson Telescope at the Observatorio Astronómico Nacional on
Sierra San Pedro Mártir from 2014/07 9.17 to 2014/07 9.25 UTC (2.76 to 4.78
hours after the BAT trigger), obtaining a total of 1.42 hours exposure in
the r and i bands and 0.60 hours exposure in the Z, Y, J, and H bands.

We detect no sources within the Swift-XRT error circle.  In comparison with
2MASS, we obtain the following upper limits (3-sigma):

  r > 23.39
  i > 23.20
  Z > 22.17
  Y > 21.61
  J > 21.55
  H > 21.13

These magnitudes are in the AB system and are not corrected for Galactic
extinction in the direction of the GRB.  We note that a faint, red source
is detected just outside the XRT error region at a position:

 RA, DEC = 304.661780,  51.224069 +/- 0.5" (J2000), with

  r > 23.08
  i = 22.15 +/- 0.13
  Z = 21.43 +/- 0.18
  Y > 21.25
  J = 20.90 +/- 0.20
  H = 20.76 +/- 0.25

We cannot confirm fading in this source.  We thank the staff of the
Observatorio Astronómico Nacional in San Pedro Mártir.