Optical/Near‐Infrared Observations of GRO J1744−28

We present results from a series of optical (g and r-band) and near-infrared(K'-band) observations of the region of the sky including the entire XTE andROSAT error circles for the ``Bursting Pulsar'' GRO J1744-28. These data weretaken with the Astrophysical Research Consortium's 3.5-m telescope at ApachePoint Observatory and with the 2.2-m telescope at the European SouthernObservatory. We see no new object, nor any significant brightening of any knownobject, in these error circles, with the exception of an object detected in our8 February 1996 image. This object has already been proposed as a near-infraredcounterpart to GRO J1744-28. While it is seen in only two of our ten 8 Februaryframes, there is no evidence that this is an instrumental artifact, suggestingthe possibility of near-infrared flares from GRO J1744-28, similar to thosethat have been reported from the Rapid Burster. The distance to the ``BurstingPulsar'' must be more than 2 kpc, and we suggest that it is more than 7 kpc.Comment: 21 pages, 5 JPEG plates, 2 postscript figures. This paper will appear in the May 1, 1997 edition of the Astrophysical Journa