COMMISSION 27 OF THE I. A. U.
           INFORMATION BULLETIN ON VARIABLE STARS
                       Number 2854

                                       Konkoly Observatory
                                       Budapest
                                       23 January 1986

                                       HU ISSN 0374 - 0676




              A POSSIBLE VARIABLE STAR NEAR

          THE GAMMA RAY BURST SOURCE GBS 0526 - 66



  180 sky patrol plates of the years 1934-1938 and 1952-1953 existing in
the Sonneberg Observatory archive were examined for optical flashes in the
very small error box of the famous gamma ray burst of 5 March 1979 (GB790305).
This error box overlaps with the supernova remnant N49 in the Large Magellanic
Cloud. The exposure times of the plates range from 30 to 60 minutes giving a
limiting magnitude of the plates of 13.5m. No optical event in the gamma 
burst source GBS 0526-66 could be found.

  There was, however, a flash-like event on the plate 722 of 17 Dec. 1952
at the position alpha(1950)= 5h27m47s+-4s, delta(1950)=-66deg06'45"+-30" (on the
charts 44V and 42B of Hodge and Wright, The Large Magellanic Cloud, Smithsonian 
Press, 1967, there are two or three stars at this position which are
just separated on the charts but not at all on our plates, cf. Fig. 1.). The  
optical flash reached ~ 11.5m and the limiting magnitude of the respective
plate is ~ 12.5m. The brightness of the possible eruptive star declined


                              [FIGURE 1]

 Figure 1. The identification chart of the possible variable star


during the following, weeks up to 10 Febr. 1953 to the pre-outburst level of
~ 13 with some fluctuations superimposed. The star also seems to reach the
brightness of ~ 12.5m on plates of Nov.-Dec. 1937 and Jan.-Feb. 1938.
  Unfortunately the photographic brightness of the suspected images is
near the limiting magnitude of the plates examined. So we cannot conclude
with certainty if the possible variability is real or else caused by a
statistical effect of e.g. grain noise.

  We thank Dr. Wenzel of Sonneberg Observatory for kind support in performing 
this work.




                        J. FLOHRER and J. GREINER
                        Institut fur Kosmosforschung
                        DDR - 1199 Berlin
                        Rudower Chaussee 5