TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR NUMBER: 19109 SUBJECT: GRB 160227A: NOT redshift DATE: 16/02/28 18:34:30 GMT FROM: Dong Xu at NAOC/CAS D. Xu (NAOC/CAS), J. P. U. Fynbo, D. Malesani (DARK/NBI), A. de Ugarte Postigo (IAA-CSIC, DARK/NBI), T. Petrushevska (Stockholm U.), P. M. Sorensen, J. Saario, J. Telting (NOT) report on behalf of a larger collaboration: We observed the field of GRB 160227A (Siegel et al., GCN 19098) using the 2.56m Nordic Optical Telescope (NOT) equipped with the ALFOSC camera. Observations started at 20:19:12 UT on 2016-02-27 (i.e., 0.784 hr post-burst) and 2x120s R-band frames were obtained, followed by 2x1800s+1x1200s spectroscopy (i.e., at a median time of ~1.87 hr post-burst) covering 3200A - 9000A, all in a seeing of ~2.0 arcsec. The previously reported optical afterglow (e.g., Siegel et al., GCN 19098; Gorbovskoy et al., GCN 19099) is clearly detected in our stacked R-band image, with R~19.3 mag calibrated with nearby USNO B1 stars. Preliminary analysis of the spectrum shows a clear trough at the blue end of the spectral continuum, indicating Ly-alpha absorption from H I. We also detect several narrow absorption features, though at low signal-to-noise, which we interpret as due to, e.g., C II, Si II, O I, C II, Fe II, all consistent with a redshift of z = 2.38.