2003IAUC.8077....2I

J. J. M. in 't Zand, Space Research Organization Netherlands; and P. Ubertini, F. Capitanio, and M. Del Santo, Istituto Astrofisica Spaziale e Fisica Cosmica, Rome, report on their analysis of archival BeppoSAX-WFC data. IGR J16320-4751 = AX J1631.9-4752 (IAUC 8076) was consistently detected during 1996-2002, at a flux that varied between 10 and 16 mCrab (5-10 keV; 2-month averages); with the ASCA detection, this suggests that the source has been persistently active for at least 8 years. Based on three broad channels (2-5, 5-10, and 10-28 keV) and averaged over all data, an absorbed power model describes the data well with a photon index of 2.5 ± 0.3 and N_H = (2 ± 1) x 10**23 cm**-2. The average unabsorbed 0.7-10-keV flux is 4 x 10**-10 erg cm**-2 s**-1. If the source is a high-mass x-ray binary (cf. IAUC 8076), the persistently bright emission would be more in line with the mass donor being a (super)giant than a Be star. The position in the combined WFC data is R.A. = 16h32m05s.4, Decl. = -47o52'07" (equinox 2000.0; 99-percent-confidence error radius 1'.7), which is 1'.1 from the centroid of AX J1631.9-4752 and 1' from IGR J16320-4751. IGR J16318-4848 (IAUC 8063, 8076) was never detected in any accumulation of WFC data, with an upper limit of 5 mCrab per visibility window.