Program: GN-2008B-DD-3

Soft gamma-ray repeaters (SGRs) are thought to be young, highly magnetised neutron stars. SGR 0501+4516 was discovered yesterday by Swift, and appears to be the least extincted SGR to date found in the Milky Way/Magellanic Cloud system (only 4 or 5 others are known). Our UKIRT observations show a candidate near-IR counterpart within the X-ray error circle, and we seek further Gemini/NIRI observations to monitor this source for variability, which would confirm its association with the new SGR.