TITLE:   GCN CIRCULAR
NUMBER:  9036
SUBJECT: GRB 090323: Lick observations
DATE:    09/03/25 10:43:03 GMT
FROM:    Daniel Perley at U.C. Berkeley  <dperley@astro.berkeley.edu>

D. A. Perley, C. R. Klein, A. N. Morgan, and E. Petigura (UC Berkeley) 
report:

We observed the afterglow of GRB 090323 (Ohno et al., GCN 9021; Updike 
et al., GCN 9026; Cenko et al., GCN 9027) with the Nickel 40in telescope 
at Lick Observatory starting at UT 06:45 on 2009-03-25 for a series of 
5- and 10- minute exposures totaling 55 minutes of integration time 
under photometric conditions.  The afterglow is detected in the stacked 
frame.  Using the same calibration star mentioned in Kann et al. (GCN 
9033), we calculate a magnitude of R = 21.3 +/- 0.2  at a mid-time of 
t=2.30 days after the trigger.  This suggests (within the uncertainty) 
that the afterglow has faded significantly since the observations of 
Kann et al. and Wang et al. (GCN 9034) ~12 hours prior and that the 
optical flattening phase may have ended.  Additional observations are 
planned.