The ROTSE-IIIa telescope at Siding Spring Observatory, Australia, detected prompt optical emission from Swift GRB 050401. In this letter, we present observations of the early optical afterglow, first detected by the ROTSE-IIIa telescope 33 s after the start of gamma-ray emission, contemporaneous with the brightest peak of this emission. This GRB was neither exceptionally long nor bright. This is the first prompt optical detection of a GRB of typical duration and luminosity. We find that the early afterglow decay does not deviate significantly from the power-law decay observable at later times, and is uncorrelated with the prompt gamma-ray emission. We compare this detection with the other two GRBs with prompt observations, GRB 990123 and GRB 041219a. All three bursts exhibit quite different behavior at early times.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures. Accepted for publication in ApJ Letter

15 Los Alamos National Laboratory, NIS-2 MS D436, Los Alamos, NM 87545, vestrand@lanl.gov, jwren@nis.lanl.gov -2 -We present several cases of optical observations during γ-ray bursts (GRBs) which resulted in prompt limits but no detection of optical emission. These limits constrain the prompt optical flux densities and the optical brightness relative to the γ-ray emission. The derived constraints fall within the range of properties observed in GRBs with prompt optical detections, though at the faint end of optical/γ flux ratios. The presently accessible prompt optical limits do not require a different set of intrinsic or environmental GRB properties, relative to the events with prompt optical detections.

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CCD observations of stars in the young cluster IC 348 were obtained from 2004 August to 2005 January with a 0.45 m ROTSEIIId robotic reflecting telescope at the Turkish National Observatory site, Bakırlıtepe, Turkey. The timing analysis of selected stars whose X-Ray counterpart were detected by Chandra X-Ray Observatory were studied. The time series of stars were searched for rotational periodicity by using different period search methods. 35 stars were found to be periodic with periods ranging from 0.74 to 32.3 days. Eighteen of the 35 periodic stars were new detections. Four of the new detections were CTTSs and the others were WTTSs and G type (or unknown spectral class) stars. In this study, we confirmed the stability of rotation periods of TTauri stars. The periods obtained by Cohen et al. and us were different by 1%. We also confirmed the 3.24 h pulsation period of H254 which is a δ Scuti type star as noted by Ripepi et al. but the other periods detected by them were not found. We examined correlation between X-ray luminosity and rotational period of our sample of TTSs. There is a decline in the rotational period with X-ray luminosity for late type TTSs.

The ROSAT HRI was used to monitor X-ray emission from the Vela Pulsar. Six observations span 2-1/2 years and 3 glitches. The summed data yield a determination of the pulse shape, and X-ray emission from the pulsar is found to be 12% pulsed with one broad and two narrow peaks. One observation occurred 15 days after a large glitch. No change in pulse structure was observed and any change in X-ray luminosity, if present, was less than 3%. Implications for neutron star structure are discussed.