{
  "bibcode": "2003GCN..2196....1W",
  "body": "Michael Weidinger, Johan P. U. Fynbo (U. of Aarhus), Jens Hjorth \n(U. of Copenhagen), Javier Gorosabel (IAA-CSIC/STScI), Paul Vreeswijk \n(ESO Chile), Sylvio Klose (TLS Tautenburg) report on behalf of the \nGRACE collaboration:\n\n\"We have observed the field of GRB 030429 (=HETE trigger 2695) around\nMay 2.2 UT with the ESO VLT. Using FORS1 on UT1 we have obtained a \nspectrum of the optical afterglow (GCN 2184) covering 3800 - 8000 \nAngstrom. In the spectrum we identify a strong damped Ly-alpha line \naround 4442 Angstrom. This implies a lower limit of z=2.65 to the \nredshift of GRB 030429. The absence of Ly-alpha forest absorption on \nthe red side of the line and the seemingly very large column density \nof the line renders a higher redshift very unlikely and we therefore \nconclude that z=2.65 is the redshift of GRB 030429. \n\nWe acknowledge excellent support from Cedric Ledoux, Rachel Johnson, \nPoshak Gandhi and Elena Mason at the Paranal Observatory.\"",
  "circularId": 2196,
  "createdOn": 1051887682000,
  "email": "jfynbo@phys.au.dk",
  "subject": "GRB 030429: redshift from VLT spectroscopy",
  "submitter": "Johan U. Fynbo at IFA,U of Aarhus  <jfynbo@phys.au.dk>",
  "eventId": "GRB 030429"
}