TITLE: GCN GRB OBSERVATION REPORT NUMBER: 698 SUBJECT: GRB980519, HST/STIS observations of the host galaxy DATE: 00/06/13 14:23:51 GMT FROM: Stephen Holland at IFA, U of Aarhus Stephen Holland, Johan Fynbo, Bjarne Thomsen (University of Aarhus), Michael Andersen (University of Oulu), Gunnlaugur Bjornsson (University of Iceland), Jens Hjorth (University of Copenhagen), Andreas Jaunsen (University of Oslo), Priya Natarajan (Univeristy of Cambridge, & Yale), and Nial Tanvir (University of Hertfordshire) We have initiated a survey of the host galaxies of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) using the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph on the Hubble Space Telescope. The data will consist of deep images of the host galaxies of eleven GRBs taken at least one year after the GRB occurred. We have waived the normal one-year proprietary period for this data, and we will make drizzled images available to the astronomical community. The web site for the Survey of the Host Galaxies of Gamma-Ray Bursts is "http://www.ifa.au.dk/~hst/grb_hosts/index.html". We have obtained 8983 seconds of STIS images taken with the 50CCD (clear) aperture of GRB 980519. A combined image is now available at "http://www.ifa.au.dk/~hst/grb_hosts/data/index.html". This data was taken approximately 750 days after the burst. We find two small galaxies within approximately 1.5 arcseconds of the GRB. The bright galaxy has an AB magnitude of 27.0 +/- 0.1 in the STIS 50CCD (clear) aperture while the fainter galaxy, which we presume to be the host, has an AB magnitude of 28.0 +/- 0.3. The total flux from both objects agrees with the Kron-Cousins R-band magnitudes measured by Hjorth et al. (1999, A&AS, 138, 461), Sokolov et al. (1998, GCNC 148), and Bloom et al. (1998, GCNC 149) if the combined colour of the two galaxies is V-R = 0.8 +/- 0.4. The GRB occurred approximately 0.7 arcseconds to the north of the centre of the faint galaxy. The bright galaxy shows some signs of a barred spiral structure. The central regions have a full-width at half-maximum (after correcting for the point spread function) of ~0.06 arcseconds. The faint galaxy is elongated with an ellipticity of ~0.3 and a major axis of ~1 arcsecond.