We report on the analysis of 8 years of MAssive Compact Halo Objects ( MACHO ) data for the source RX J0520.5-6932 .
A regular period of 24.4 days has been confirmed , however this is manifest almost entirely in the red part of the spectrum .
A major outburst , lasting approximately 200 days , was observed which increased the apparent brightness of the object by approximately 0.15 magnitudes without significantly altering its V-R colour index .
This outburst was also seen in X-ray data .
The evidence from this analysis points to the identification of this object as a Be/X-ray binary with a periodically variable circumstellar disk and a very early optical counterpart .