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   63012
   GS1826-24 was first discovered by Ginga in 1988 and originally
   suggested to be a soft X-ray transient black-hole candidate. However,
   bursts have recently been detected in X-rays by SAX and in the optical
   counterpart by us, thereby confirming a neutron star primary. More
   importantly, our fast optical photometry reveals a 2hr modulation, plus
   irregular variability that is reminiscent of X1636-536 and X1735-444.
   If confirmed as the orbital period, this places GS1826-24 in a unique
   evolutionary position amongst LMXBs. We propose here to use ASCA to
   undertake the first detailed X-ray spectral study, in particular (a) to
   search for soft X-ray spectral features, (b) to undertake a spectral
   analysis of the bursts, (c) to investigate the structure of the short-
   term optical variations.
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