TITLE: GCN GRB OBSERVATION REPORT NUMBER: 1821 SUBJECT: GRB 021211: R-band observations at late-time DATE: 03/01/16 14:23:05 GMT FROM: Daniele Malesani at SISSA-ISAS,Trieste,Italy V. Testa (INAF-OAR), D. Fugazza (INAF-TNG), M. Della Valle (INAF-OAA), D. Malesani (SISSA), E. Mason (ESO), E. Pian (INAF-OATs), L.A. Antonelli (INAF-OAR), S. Benetti (INAF-OAPd), G. Cocozza (INAF-OAR), S. Covino (INAF-OABr), G. Ghisellini (INAF-OABr), G.L. Israel (INAF-OAR), N. Masetti (IASF-CNR), E. Palazzi (IASF-CNR), L. Stella (INAF-OAR), on behalf of a larger Italian collaboration, report: We have imaged the optical afterglow of the GRB 021211 (Fox & Price, GCN 1531; Crew et al., GCN 1734) on different epochs, using the Italian 3.6m TNG telescope, equipped with OIG, and the 8.2m ESO-VLT-UT4 (Yepun) equipped with FORS2, in the R-band filter. In the VLT images we clearly detect a point-like source at the position of the afterglow. Our results are reported in the following table: UT exposure Telescope seeing R magnitude -------------------------------------------------------- 2002 Dec 27.09 70 min 3.6m TNG 1.0" > 25.0 2003 Jan 9.30 33 min 8.2m VLT 0.6" 24.1 +- 0.2 2003 Jan 10.23 30 min 8.2m VLT 1.2" 24.5 +- 0.2 2003 Jan 14.33 15 min 8.2m VLT 0.8" 24.6 +- 0.1 The first value is a 3-sigma upper limit and it assumes a point-like source. Errors for the other observations are 1-sigma. Some cirrus were present during the Jan 9 exposure. Our dataset confirms the flattening in the light curve found by HST (Fruchter et al., GCN 1781). The VLT measurements do not indicate significant variability, and are also consistent with the HST ACS F606W measurement. We thank the ESO Director and the ESO staff at Garching for promptly considering our DDT proposal. We also thank the personnel at TNG (in particular Massimo Cecconi, Juan Carlos Guerra and Marco Pedani) and at Paranal (in particular Andreas Kaufer and Nancy Ageorges). This messagge is citeable.