TITLE:   GCN GRB OBSERVATION REPORT
NUMBER:  739
SUBJECT: GRB000630: Optical observations
DATE:    00/07/01 12:33:48 GMT
FROM:    Brian Lindgren Jensen at U.of Copenhagen  <brian_j@astro.ku.dk>

B. L. Jensen, H. Pedersen, J. Hjorth, J. P. U. Fynbo (U. of Copenhagen),
J. Gorosabel (DSRI, Copenhagen) on behalf of a larger European
collaboration, H. Schwarz (NOT) and D. G. Delgado (U. of Stockholm)
report:

"We have obtained images covering about 95% of the error box reported 
by Hurley et al. (GCN #736) with the 2.56-m Nordic Optical Telescope 
(+ALFOSC) on La Palma on 2000 June 30.90 UT (about 21 h after the
burst). We obtained 3 x 300 sec R band exposures in seeing of 0.9".
Comparing with DSS-2 (red) exposure no convincing candidate down
to the limit of DSS (R~21.2) are found. We find no object at the
position of the proposed counterpart by Bartolini et al. (GCN #737),
but detect a star-like object (R = 21.0+-0.1) 3.5" to the south of
it at RA(J2000) = 14:47:25.37, Dec(J2000) = +41:12:24.1. This
object may be present on the DSS-2 (red) exposure. We find no
optical counterpart to the radio source of Berger et al.
(GCN #738) down to R = 24. The nearest optical source
(R = 24.5+-0.4) is located at RA(J2000) = 14:46.58.9,
Dec(J2000) = +41:17:00, ie. 1.5"+-0.5" from the radio source.
The photometry and astrometry reported here was based on the
USNO-A2.0 catalog. Images of the field are posted at:
http://www.astro.ku.dk/~brian_j/grb/grb000630/ "