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   73009
   We propose a systematic monitoring of 4U0142+61, the brightest member
   of the small class of Anomalous (or 6-sec) X-ray Pulsars. To accurately
   assess its variability properties, on timescales from several hours to
   a few days, a set of directly comparable observations obtained with the
   same instrument and analyzed in a consistent way is necessary.
   Detection of variability (and possibly related Pdot changes), or strong
   upper limits, would provide crucial information to discriminate between
   accretion based models and other mechanisms recently proposed to
   explain the X-ray emission from AXP, like, e.g., magnetic field decay
   and/or internal cooling of isolated neutron stars. The imaging
   capabilities of ASCA are required to avoid contamination from a nearby
   variable source.
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