17th Texas Symposium on Relativistic Astrophysics
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             COMPTEL OBSERVATIONS OF GAMMA-RAY BURSTS
   
         R.M. Kippen, A. Connors, M. McConnell, J. Ryan 
                   (University of New Hampshire) 
      W. Collmar, J. Greiner, V. Schoenfelder, M. Varendorff 
          (Max-Planck Institut fur Extraterrische Physik) 
                      W. Hermsen, L. Kuiper 
                         (SRON-Utrecht)
            L.O. Hanlon, K.S. O'Flaherty, C. Winkler 
                 (Astrophysics Division, ESTEC)


  The Imaging Compton Telescope (COMPTEL) onboard the Compton Gamma 
Ray Observatory regularly detects cosmic gamma-ray bursts.  Energy 
spectra and temporal profiles are obtained both from the main 
instrument (0.75-30 MeV) and independent burst modules (0.1-10 MeV).  
Analysis of these measurements indicate a wide variety of different
temporal structures and energy spectra which are in most cases well-
described by a single power-law model with spectral index ~2-3. 
Several of these events show evidence of significant spectral 
evolution.
  In its first three years of operation, 18 significant bursts 
occurring within the ~1 sr field-of-view of the main instrument have
been localized through direct imaging with an average accuracy of ~1 
deg.  The locations of these bursts are consistent with an isotropic 
distribution of sources, however two of the events coincide 
spatially well within the instrumental errors.  The probability of 
such a coincidence occurring by chance in an isotropic distribution 
has been estimated to be ~3% -- suggesting the possibility that these
two events are somehow related to a single source. 
  Several of the COMPTEL bursts were localized within hours of their 
occurrence, initiating world-wide multiwavelength searches for fading 
counterpart emission in record time.  No obvious counterparts have 
yet been identified, however COMPTEL observes new bursts at a rate of 
~1/month and the localization response-time continues to improve.  We 
present an overview of COMPTEL gamma-ray burst results and an update 
on new observations, including rapidly imaged events.


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