TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR NUMBER: 8869 SUBJECT: GRB 090201: VLT afterglow candidate DATE: 09/02/02 01:54:09 GMT FROM: Paolo D'Avanzo at INAF-OAB "P. D'Avanzo, C. C. Thoene, D. Fugazza (INAF-OAB), V. D'Elia (INAF-OAR), R. Salvaterra, S. Covino, S. Campana (INAF-OAB), G. Chincarini (Univ. Bicocca) report, on behalf of the MISTICI collaboration: We observed the field of GRB 090201 (Oates et a., GCN 8865) with the ESO-VLT in imaging mode starting about 7.5 hours after the burst. Observations were carried out in R and I-band with the FORS2 camera. At the edge of the XRT error circle (Beardmore et al. GCN 8868) we find a very faint source at the following coordinates (J2000): R.A. = 06:08:12.92 Dec. = -46:35:17.3 +/- 0.3" Preliminary photometry of this candidate afterglow gives R ~ 25.2 and I ~ 24.1. Further observations are ongoing. We acknowledge the VLT staff for their support, in particular E. Valenti and J. Smoker. [GCN OPS NOTE(02jan09): Per author's request, RS was added to the author list.]