THE OPTICAL GRAVITATIONAL LENSING EXPERIMENT - DISCOVERY OF THE 1ST CANDIDATE MICROLENSING EVENT IN THE DIRECTION OF THE GALACTIC BULGE

We report the discovery of the first candidate microlensing event to be discovered in the direction of the Galactic Bulge. The peak brightness of the candidate event occurred on June 15, 1993. The event had time scale (R0/V, R0 - the Einstein radius, V - the transverse velocity of the lens) equal to 23.8 +/- 0.9 day and amplification A = 2.4 +/- 0. 1. The lensed star is at the tum-off point in the Galactic Bulge. The lensing object is likely to be a disk M-dwarf of about 0.3 M..