TITLE: GCN GRB OBSERVATION REPORT NUMBER: 646 SUBJECT: GRB 000418, Optical Observation DATE: 00/04/25 23:00:23 GMT FROM: Nestor Mirabal at Columbia U. N. Mirabal, J. P. Halpern, J. Kemp, & D. J. Helfand (Columbia U.) report on behalf of the MDM Observatory GRB follow-up team: "The potential K-band counterpart of GRB 000418 reported by Klose et al. (GCN #645) is present in an R-band image which we obtained on the MDM 2.4m telescope on April 21, 03:33 UT. Its position is (J2000) RA 12 25 19.30, Dec. +20 06 11.1, with an uncertainty of 0."5. Under non-photometric conditions we measure R = 21.52 +/- 0.12 for this candidate, referenced to a USNO star at (J2000) RA 12 25 25.62, Dec. +20 04 57.8 which is listed as R = 15.4. An additional systematic uncertainty of 0.2 mag should be assumed based on the dispersion among other USNO star magnitudes in this field. Further observations are needed to determine if this object is fading. This message may be cited."