  We report on observations of the X-ray pulsar 4U 1626-67 by the LECS
instrument on-board Bepposax. We confirm the recent ASCA discovery of excess
emission near 1 keV (Angelini et al. 1995). The pulse period of 7.66794 +/-
0.00004 s indicates that the source continues to spin-down. The phase averaged
spectrum is well fit by an absorbed power-law of photon index 0.61 +/- 0.02 and
a blackbody of temperature 0.33 +/- 0.02 keV, together with an emission feature
at 1.05 +/- 0.02 keV. This spectral shape is similar to that observed by ASCA
during the spin-down phase, but significantly different from measurements
during spin-up. This suggests that the change in spectrum observed by ASCA may
be a stable feature during spin-down intervals. The source intensity is a
factor ~2 lower than observed by ASCA three years earlier, confirming that 4U
1626-67 continues to become fainter with time.

Astrophysics