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TITLE: GCN GRB OBSERVATION REPORT NUMBER: 2196 SUBJECT: GRB 030429: redshift from VLT spectroscopy DATE: 03/05/02 15:01:22 GMT FROM: Johan U. Fynbo at IFA,U of Aarhus <jfynbo@phys.au.dk> Michael Weidinger, Johan P. U. Fynbo (U. of Aarhus), Jens Hjorth (U. of Copenhagen), Javier Gorosabel (IAA-CSIC/STScI), Paul Vreeswijk (ESO Chile), Sylvio Klose (TLS Tautenburg) report on behalf of the GRACE collaboration: "We have observed the field of GRB 030429 (=HETE trigger 2695) around May 2.2 UT with the ESO VLT. Using FORS1 on UT1 we have obtained a spectrum of the optical afterglow (GCN 2184) covering 3800 - 8000 Angstrom. In the spectrum we identify a strong damped Ly-alpha line around 4442 Angstrom. This implies a lower limit of z=2.65 to the redshift of GRB 030429. The absence of Ly-alpha forest absorption on the red side of the line and the seemingly very large column density of the line renders a higher redshift very unlikely and we therefore conclude that z=2.65 is the redshift of GRB 030429. We acknowledge excellent support from Cedric Ledoux, Rachel Johnson, Poshak Gandhi and Elena Mason at the Paranal Observatory."
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