GRB 230420A: NOT optical afterglow confirmation

We observed the field of GRB 230420A detected by Swift (Klingler et al., GCN 33658) using the 2.56-m Nordic Optical Telescope (NOT) equipped with the ALFOSC camera. Observations started at 00:31:32 UT on 2023-04-21, i.e., ~14.2 hr after the Swift/BAT trigger, and 3 x 300 s images in the Sloan r-filter and 5 x 200 s images in the Sloan z-filter were obtained, respectively. We detect an uncatalogued source in the stacked images within the enhanced XRT error circle (Osborne et al., GCN 33661) at coordinates: R.A. (J2000) = 10:44:11.55 Dec. (J2000) = +32:06:28.34 with an uncertainty of ~0.3 arcsec. The source has m(r) = 23.2 +/- 0.2 (AB) at 14.34 hr post-burst and m(z) = 22.3 +/- 0.2 (AB) at 14.64 hr post-burst, calibrated with nearby field stars from the Pan-STARRS catalog. This source is likely the same as the one observed by BOOTES-5/JGT (Hu et al., GCN 33663), as both sources lie within the very small XRT error circle. The fading confirms that this source is the optical afterglow of GRB 230420A.