A search for optical afterglow from GRB970828

We report on the results of R band observations of the error box of the γ-ray burst of August 28, 1997, made between 4 hours and 8 days after this burst occurred. No counterpart was found varying by more than 0.2 magnitudes down to $\text{R=23.8.}$ We discuss the consequences of this non-detection for relativistic blast wave models of γ-ray bursts, and the possible effect of redshift on the relation between optical absorption and the low-energy cutoff in the X-ray afterglow spectrum.