TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR NUMBER: 8239 SUBJECT: GRB 080916: REM detection of the NIR afterglow DATE: 08/09/16 11:45:46 GMT FROM: Angelo Antonelli at Obs. Astro. di Roma L.A. Antonelli, S. Covino, P. D'Avanzo, D. Fugazza, L. Calzoletti, S. Campana, G. Chincarini, M.L. Conciatore, S. Cutini, V. D'Elia, F. D'Alessio, F. Fiore, P. Goldoni, D. Guetta, C. Guidorzi, G.L. Israel, E. Maiorano, N. Masetti, A. Melandri, E. Meurs, L. Nicastro, E. Palazzi, E. Pian, S. Piranomonte, L. Stella, G. Stratta, G. Tagliaferri, G. Tosti, V.Testa, S.D. Vergani, F. Vitali report on behalf of the REM team: The robotic 60-cm REM telescope located at La Silla (Chile) observed automatically the field of the GRB 080916 (Ziaeepour et al. GCN 8237) on Sep 16 starting observations about 19.4 sec after the GRB. We clearly detect a NIR source at RA(J2000)=22:25:06.13, Dec.(J2000) =-57:01:22 with an uncertainty of 1" which is compatible with the position of the UVOT source (Ziaeepour et al. GCN 8237). At the beginning of the observation the source had a magnitude H=14.0+/-0.3, calibrated against 2MASS. The source showed a clear fading behavior during the REM observation. [GCN OPS NOTE(16sep08): The author requests that people should use the 8238 Circular as the primary source. The 8239 Circular was the result of multiple efforts of a distributed team.] [GCN OPS NOTE(16sep08): Per author's request, DM was removed from the author list.]