SEARCH FOR AN OPTICAL COUNTERPART OF THE COMPTEL SOURCE GRO J1753+57

In November 1992, COMPTEL discovered the unusual and highly variable s ource GRO J1753+57. There are no obvious candidates for counterparts i n other wavebands, such as a bright radio loud AGN. A thorough search of radio and NGC sources was undertaken to identify possible counterpa rts. Two potentially interesting objects were found, NGC 6454 and NGC 6474, but they exhibit only limited optical variability and core emiss ion, contrarily to what would be expected from known extragalactic gam ma-ray sources. Supportive evidence for the elliptical galaxy NGC 6454 comes from previous radio and Xray measurements.