GCN 44083: EP260321a: GOTO detection of blue variable source

S. Moran, A. Kumar, G. Ramsay, D. O'Neill, K. Ulaczyk, S. Moran, B. P. Gompertz, R. Starling, M. Wortley, M. Kennedy, K. Ackley, M. Dyer, J. Lyman, D. Steeghs, D. Galloway, V. Dhillon, P. O'Brien, K. Noysena, R. Kotak, R. Breton, J. Casares, L. Nuttall, B. Godson, T. Killestein, M. Pursiainen, on behalf of GOTO collaboration:

We report on optical observations with the Gravitational-wave Optical Transient Observer (GOTO; Steeghs et al. 2022, Dyer et al. 2024) that serendipitously covered the field of EP/WXT detected EP260321a (WXT01709259023; Huang et al., GCNs 44068, 44075). Observations covering the localisation area were taken at 2026-03-22 11:25:46 UT (+22.92h post trigger) utilising GOTO-South. Each observation consisted of 4x45s exposures in the GOTO L-band (400-700 nm).

We detect the previously reported variable source (Lee et al. GCN 44070, Tanvir et al. GCN 44082) with L = 19.51 ± 0.1 AB mag.

GOTO (https://goto-observatory.org) is a network of telescopes that is principally funded by the STFC and operated at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on La Palma, Spain, and Siding Spring Observatory in NSW, Australia, on behalf of a consortium including the University of Warwick, Monash University, Armagh Observatory & Planetarium, the University of Leicester, the University of Sheffield, the National Astronomical Research Institute of Thailand (NARIT), the University of Turku, the University of Portsmouth, the University of Manchester, the University of Birmingham and the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC).