The Whipple Observatory 10 m reflector, operating as a 37 pixel camera, has been used to observe the Crab Nebula in TeV gamma rays. By selecting gamma-ray images based on their predicted properties, more than 98% of the background is rejected; a detection is reported at the 9.0 a level, corresponding to a flux of 1.8 x 10 11 photons cm 2 s 1 above 0.7 TeV (with a factor of 1.5 uncertainty in both flux and energy). Less than 25% of the observed flux is pulsed at the period of PSR 0531. There is no evidence for variability on time scales from months to years. Although continuum emission from the pulsar cannot be ruled out, it seems more likely that the observed flux comes from the hard Compton synchrotron spectrum of the nebula.
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