TITLE: GCN GRB OBSERVATION REPORT NUMBER: 3872 SUBJECT: GRB 050824: XRT refined analysis and possible afterglow detection DATE: 05/08/25 05:28:52 GMT FROM: Sergio Campana at INAF-OAB S. Campana (INAF-OAB), V. Mangano (INAF-IASF Palermo), G. Chincarini (INAF-OAB & Uni. Bicocca), G. Tagliaferri (INAF-OAB), D.N. Burrows (PSU), L. Cominsky (Sonoma State U.) and J. Norris (GSFC) report on behalf of the Swift XRT team: We have analyzed the Swift XRT data from the first orbit observation of GRB 050824 (Campana et al., GCN3866). The new refined coordinates are: RA(J2000) = 0h48m56.05s Dec(J2000) = +22:36:28.5 This position is 59 arcseconds from the BAT position given in GCN3866 (and 83 arcsec from the refined BAT position, Krimm et al. GCN3871) and 3.4 arcsec from the suggested optical counterpart (Gorosabel et al., GCN3865). We estimated an uncertainty of 6.8 arcseconds radius (90% confidence level, throughout the circular). A second fainter X-ray source is located 2.5 arcmin from the suggested afterglow position (and further away from the BAT refined position). The 0.5-10 keV light curve XRT started 2005-08-25 UT00:53:45, 6089 seconds after the BAT trigger, following an uploaded TOO since Swift did not automatically slewed on source (due to the Moon constraint). At the moment we have data from one Swift orbit. During the first orbit we accumulated 1346 seconds of good data. The afterglow candidate is detected with a count rate of (4.1+/-1.1)x10^-2 counts/second (55 total counts). We found no indication of count rate decay. The number of counts is too low to perform a full spectral analysis. Fixing the column density to the Galactic value (3.6x10^20 cm-2) a preliminary spectral fit to the PC data gives a spectral power law photon index of 2.6+/-0.6 in the 0.5-10 keV band. The average unabsorbed 0.5-10 keV flux is about (1.2+/-0.7)E-12 erg cm-2 s-1.