GCN Circular 2178

D. A. Smith on behalf of the ROTSE collaboration reports:

The ROTSE-IIIa telescope at Siding Spring Observatory, NSW, responded
automatically to the HETE ground alert 2695, beginning its first image less
than seven seconds after the alert time stamp, or 1.87 hours after the burst
trigger.  The automated burst response sequence consisted of ten 5-s, ten 20-s,
and forty 60-s images.  No sources not already in the USNO catalog were found
within 1.5 error radii of the SXC burst location.  Typical limiting magnitudes
for these images were 17.3, 18.2, and 18.7, respectively.  These magnitudes are
unfiltered and calibrated against the USNO A2.0 catalog R-band.  We co-added
the first five sets of ten frames to push the limiting magnitudes to 18.8,
19.5, and 19.9, respectively.  No candidate counterpart sources were found near
the error box.