TITLE: GCN GRB OBSERVATION REPORT NUMBER: 1278 SUBJECT: GRB020317, optical observations DATE: 02/03/19 16:30:40 GMT FROM: Rene Hudec at AIO Martin Jelinek, Martin Nekola, Petr Kubanek, Ivana Stoklasova, Rene Hudec and the BART team, Astronomical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Ondrejov, report: Wide Field Camera of the BART robotic telescope (FOV 4.8 deg) observed the entire error box of GRB020317. Following the GRB alert at March 17.760780 UT, the device has taken a series of images of the area defined by HETE for trigger 1959. Exposures started at March 17.8009 (57.8 min after the burst and 5.2 min after the GCN notice was generated) and ended at March 18.1715. Total exposure time is 252 minutes. Poor weather conditions allowed an unfiltered single image wide field limiting magnitude 14. We have no positive OT detections within this range, except for one suspicious object on the noise level detected on a sum of first 10 images (lim mag 15.5) at coordinates RA 10:23:25 Dec +12:51:36 J2000 Position error is about 17 arcseconds. Nature and likelihood of reality of the detection are uncertain.