050509A update

All public on the GCN website below:

the Energizer Bunny team out at UC has a tentative spectrum of the optical counterpart
redshift about 0.6; signature of star formation, consistent with the broadband redshift estimates.

Expect a type II supernova spectrum will emerge in a few weeks


With Swift in full operational mode, a lot of GRBs are likely to be coming in with good optical transient counterparts,
and following those up and doing a good job is bloody hard work.
And there are not that many teams with that many people out there doing this.

People are going to run out of steam at some point and science could be lost just because
of understaffing and insufficient resources.