TITLE: GCN GRB OBSERVATION REPORT NUMBER: 172 SUBJECT: GRB 981226 optical observations DATE: 98/12/27 23:29:52 GMT FROM: Paul Vreeswijk at U of Amsterdam T.J. Galama, P. Vreeswijk (U. of Amsterdam), E. Palazzi, F. Frontera, N. Masetti (ITESRE, CNR, Bologna) J. van Paradijs (U. of Amsterdam and U. of Alabama in Huntsville), C. Kouveliotou (USRA/MSFC), and A.C. Cameron (U. of St Andrews, UK) report: "We have compared Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT) R-band images (Dec 27.48 1998 UT) with the Digitized Sky Survey (DSS; 'Second Epoch Southern' survey, UK Schmidt red filter), at the position of the BeppoSAX NFI source (BeppoSAX mail 98/26) in the error box of GRB 981226 (Di Ciolo et al. IAUCirc 7074). The AAT image shows a point source at RA = 23h29m35.0s, Dec = -23d56'31'' which is not visible in the DSS. The position is accurate to 2 arcsec (1-sigma). We calibrated the field using the standard field PG0231+051 (Landolt 1992, AJ 104, 340) and obtain R = 21.04 +- 0.10 for the point source. We cannot establish whether the source is related to GRB 981226 as this is a comparison between different filters, but it is a possible candidate." This message is citeable.