TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR NUMBER: 9357 SUBJECT: GRB 090515: ROTSE-III Optical Limits DATE: 09/05/15 05:08:31 GMT FROM: Wiphu Rujopakarn at U AZ/Steward W. Rujopakarn (Steward Observatory), B. E. Schaefer (Louisiana State), and E.S. Rykoff (UCSB), report on behalf of the ROTSE collaboration: ROTSE-IIIb, located at McDonald Observatory, Texas, responded to GRB 090515 (Swift trigger 352108; Beardmore et al., GCN 9356), producing images beginning 6.5 s after the GCN notice time. An automated response took the first image at 04:45:27.5 UT, 18.0 s after the burst, under fair conditions. We took 10 5-sec and 10 20-sec exposures. These unfiltered images are calibrated relative to USNO A2.0 (R). Imaging is on going. Comparison to the DSS (second epoch) reveals no new sources within the 3-sigma Swift/BAT error circle or the XRT error circle, for both single images and coadding into sets of 10. Individual images have limiting magnitudes ranging from 16.4-17.8; we set the following specific limits. start UT end UT t_exp(s) mlim t_start-tGRB(s) Coadd? -------------------------------------------------------------------- 04:45:27.5 04:45:32.5 5 16.4 18.0 N 04:45:27.5 04:46:34.6 67 18.4 18.0 Y