TITLE:   GCN GRB OBSERVATION REPORT
NUMBER:  527
SUBJECT: GRB000126, optical observations
DATE:    00/02/01 01:24:39 GMT
FROM:    Alan H. Diercks at Caltech  <ad@astro.caltech.edu>

T.S. Axelrod, B.P. Schmidt (Mt. Stromlo Observatory), J.S. Bloom,
A. Diercks, and T.J. Galama (Caltech) report on behalf of the REACT
GRB follow-up network:

We have observed the error region of GRB000126, detected by the IPN (Hurley et
al, GCN #525) and refined by BATSE (Kippen, GCN #526) with the Mt. Stromlo
Observatory 50-inch telescope + MACHO camera system Jan 29 and Jan 30 UT, 60
and 80 hours after the event respectively.

Two sets of 3x300s exposures were taken with mean epochs of observation of Jan
29.476 UT and Jan 30.540 UT.  Comparison of the MACHO_Red images (~ Cousins
R-band) via difference imaging reveals that no objects with 19.3 > R > 13.0
varied by more than the flux equivalent point-source of R = 19.0 between the
two epochs. Unfortunately, the detection limit in each epoch varied from R ~
19.3 - 20.0 due to cloudy conditions.

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