GRB 000323

A. Henden (USRA/USNO) on behalf of the USNO GRB team, and
A. J. Castro-Tirado, INTA-LAEFF (Madrid) and IAA-CSIC (Granada)
and J. M. Castro Ceron, ROA (San Fernando) on behalf of
the large Spanish-Czech BOOTES team, report:

We have observed the entire error box of GRB 000323
(cf. Hurley et al., GCN#616
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 ), using the 0.3-m BOOTES-1
telescope and the USNOFS 1.0-m telescope.  The BOOTES-1
data is unfiltered, and covers about 90 percent of
the entire error box except for the extreme northern
and southern corners.  The USNO Cousins R-band data is a
north/south mosaic that covers about 60 percent of
the error box, missing the east and west corners.
The UT exposure dates, length, and limiting magnitudes are:

BOOTES-1  2000 March 25.00  1200seconds  R=19.5
USNO      2000 March 25.42   600seconds  R=21.5
USNO      2000 March 26.31  1200seconds  R=22.2


The BOOTES-1 frame does not go as deep as the POSS-II red
plate, but no new object is apparent from comparing the
CCD data with POSS-II.  The USNO datasets go somewhat
deeper than POSS-II, but no variable object is detected
brighter than R=21.5.

A BVRI single-night calibration of the central part
of the error box, taken on a photometric night in conjunction
with a large number of Landolt standards, can be found at
ftp://ftp.nofs.navy.mil/pub/outgoing/aah/grb/grb000323.dat

K. Hurley, R. M. Kippen, S. Barthelmy, and T. Cline, on behalf
of the Ulysses, BATSE, and NEAR GRB teams, report:

Ulysses, BATSE, and NEAR observed GRB000323 (BATSE #8049).  As
observed by Ulysses, this burst had a T90 duration of about 90
s and a 25-100 keV fluence of about 4.3 x 10^-6 erg/cm^2.  We
have triangulated this burst to a preliminary ~750 sq. arcmin. error box
whose coordinates are:

    RA(2000)                 DEC(2000)
 12 h 51 m 59.81 s     48 o 49 '   6.46 "  (CENTER)
 12 h 52 m 48.03 s     48 o 26 '  56.20 "  (CORNER)
 12 h 50 m 24.05 s     48 o 46 '  14.07 "  (CORNER)
 12 h 53 m 35.73 s     48 o 51 '  54.67 "  (CORNER)
 12 h 51 m 10.65 s     49 o 11 '  19.28 "  (CORNER)

Only minor refinements to this error box are expected.