GCN Circular 7654

A. Cucchiara and D. B. Fox (Penn State) report:

"Starting on 2008 May 1.21 UT we used the Marcario LRS spectrograph
on the Hobby-Eberly Telescope (R ~ 230) to obtain a 1200s spectrum
of the optical afterglow of GRB 080430 (Guidorzi et al., GCN 7647
Not found
 
 
).
The spectrum covers the wavelength range 4100 to 10,500 Angstrom.  We
clearly observe metal absorption features corresponding to the MgII
doublet (2796, 2803 A) and MgI (2852 A) at redshift z = 0.767. The
spectrum does not show any other significant features, consistent
with Calar Alto telescope observations (de Ugarte Postigo et al.,
GCN 7650
Not found
 
 
).

We thank the HET staff for performing this observation."