Dear Colleagues,

The PLANET collaboration has confirmed the anomalous behavior in 
the MACHO-alerted SMC microlensing event 98-SMC-01.  This event in 
the Small Magellanic Cloud has recently been reported by the 
MACHO team to be a possible binary event currently in a flat 
plateau region between two caustic crossings, with the second 
crossing predicted to occur between 21 and 27 June 1998.  
Recent PLANET observations of this event in the I band taken at 
the 36-inch telescope at CTIO have detected a significant rise 
in brightness of about 0.15 magnitudes over the last 24 hours. 
The reference stars used to perform the relative PLANET photometry 
have remained constant during this period at the 0.01 magnitude level.

This suggests that this event may be approaching a second caustic 
crossing that may very well occur sooner than previously 
predicted.  For that reason, this event should be monitored 
closely now since source resolution effects near a caustic peak 
may be used to determine the proper motion of the lens, 
perhaps constraining whether the lens lies in the SMC or in the 
halo of the Milky Way.
 
Event:		 MS-98-001	(MACHO 98-SMC-01)
RA  (J2000):	 00:45:35.2
Dec (J2000):	-72:52:34

Baseline MACHO V magnitude reported by MACHO team to be 21.8.
Approximate current magnification 10 or somewhat larger.

Finding charts and updated information can be found on the 
PLANET web page at:  http://www.astro.rug.nl/~planet.

MACHO information on the same event can be found at the MACHO alert 
web page at:  http://darkstar.astro.washington.edu


(***Typo in original alert stated current magnitude was 10.  It should 
	have read current magnification was 10.)