TITLE: GCN GRB OBSERVATION REPORT NUMBER: 1958 SUBJECT: GRB030324, Optical Observations DATE: 03/03/25 23:01:21 GMT FROM: Eli Rykoff at Univ. of Michigan/ROTSE E. S. Rykoff and D. A. Smith on behalf of the ROTSE collaboration report: We have observed the full error box of GRB 030324 (HETE trigger 2641) using the ROTSE-3B 0.45 meter telescope at McDonald Observatory, Texas, starting March 24, 4:27 UT (1.24 hours after the burst). Sixty one-minute unfiltered exposures were taken, with limiting magnitudes between 18.1 and 18.5 calibrated against USNO A2.0 R-band. We co-added the frames in sets of 20 to achieve limiting magnitudes of ~ 19.6. Of the sources detected within the 7' error radius from the position reported in GCN 1954 (Donaghy, et. al.), most could be associated with stars in the USNO catalog. None of the others was found to vary over the hour of observations. Visual comparison between DSS-2 (R-band) and several ROTSE images reveal no counterpart candidates. We have also compared the first co-added frame to a co-added follow-up sequence taken the following night (23 hours after the burst). Visual inspection reveals each ROTSE-III source visible on March 24 is still visible on March 25.