BACODINE, THE REAL-TIME BATSE GAMMA-RAY BURST COORDINATES DISTRIBUTION NETWORK

The celestial coordinates of gamma-ray burst sources observed with BAT SE on GRO are automatically determined and distributed in real time to members of the global scientific community. These data are now being used by more than 20 operations to enable searches for associated tran sients in a variety of other wavelength or energy regimes to identify the burst source objects. The minimum total delay time from the onset of a burst to the receipt of its coordinates by distant experimenters can be under 4 sec, less than the duration of a typical GRB, and the m aximum total delay is 7 sec, or longer, depending on the distribution method. Some improvements to the BACODINE system and a summary of the follow-up observations made by some of the sites are given.