The Solar Tower Atmospheric Cherenkov Effect Experiment ( STACEE ) is a new ground-based atmospheric Cherenkov telescope for gamma-ray astronomy .
STACEE uses the large mirror area of a solar heliostat facility to achieve a low energy threshold .
A prototype experiment which uses 32 heliostat mirrors with a total mirror area of \sim 1200 \mathrm { m ^ { 2 } } has been constructed .
This prototype , called STACEE-32 , was used to search for high energy gamma-ray emission from the Crab Nebula and Pulsar .
Observations taken between November 1998 and February 1999 yield a strong statistical excess of gamma-like events from the Crab , with a significance of +6.75 \sigma in 43 hours of on-source observing time .
No evidence for pulsed emission from the Crab Pulsar was found , and the upper limit on the pulsed fraction of the observed excess was < 5.5 \% at the 90 % confidence level .
A subset of the data was used to determine the integral flux of gamma rays from the Crab .
We report an energy threshold of E _ { th } = 190 \pm 60 \mathrm { GeV } , and a measured integral flux of I ( E > E _ { th } ) = ( 2.2 \pm 0.6 \pm 0.2 ) ~ { } \times~ { } 10 ^ { -10 } \mathrm { photons~ { } cm ^ { -2 } % ~ { } s ^ { -1 } } .
The observed flux is in agreement with a continuation to lower energies of the power law spectrum seen at TeV energies .