  The optical transient of the faint Gamma Ray Burst 990308 was detected by the
QUEST camera on the Venezuelan 1-m Schmidt telescope starting 3.28 hours after
the burst. Our photometry gives $V = 18.32 \pm 0.07$, $R = 18.14 \pm 0.06$, $B
= 18.65 \pm 0.23$, and $R = 18.22 \pm 0.05$ for times ranging from 3.28 to 3.47
hours after the burst. The colors correspond to a spectral slope of close to
$f_{\nu} \propto \nu^{1/3}$. Within the standard synchrotron fireball model,
this requires that the external medium be less dense than $10^{4} cm^{-3}$, the
electrons contain $> 20%$ of the shock energy, and the magnetic field energy
must be less than 24% of the energy in the electrons for normal interstellar or
circumstellar densities. We also report upper limits of $V > 12.0$ at 132 s
(with LOTIS), $V > 13.4$ from 132-1029s (with LOTIS), $V > 15.3$ at 28.2 min
(with Super-LOTIS), and a 8.5 GHz flux of $< 114 \mu Jy$ at 110 days (with the
Very Large Array). WIYN 3.5-m and Keck 10-m telescopes reveal this location to
be empty of any host galaxy to $R > 25.7$ and $K > 23.3$. The lack of a host
galaxy likely implies that it is either substantially subluminous or more
distant than a red shift of $\sim 1.2$.
