RESULTS FROM GAMMA-RAY OPTICAL COUNTERPART SEARCH EXPERIMENT - A REAL-TIME SEARCH FOR GAMMA-RAY BURST OPTICAL COUNTERPARTS

The Gamma-Ray Optical Counterpart Search Experiment (GROCSE) has searc hed for contemporaneous optical counterparts to gamma-ray bursts (GRBs ) using an automated rapidly slewing wide field of view optical telesc ope at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The telescope was trigg ered in real time by the Burst and Transient Source Experiment (BATSE) data telemetry stream as processed and distributed by the BATSE COord inates DIstribution NEtwork (BACODINE). GROCSE recorded sky images for 28 GRB triggers between 1994 January and 1996 June. The analysis of t he 12 best events is presented here, half of which were recorded durin g detectable gamma-ray emission. No optical counterparts have been det ected to limiting magnitudes m(v) less than or equal to 8.5 despite ne arly complete coverage of burst error boxes.