TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR NUMBER: 7544 SUBJECT: GRB 080330: NOT redshift DATE: 08/03/30 07:19:56 GMT FROM: Daniele Malesani at Niels Bohr Inst,Dark Cosmology Center Daniele Malesani, Johan P.U. Fynbo (DARK), Pall Jakobsson (Univ. Hertfordshire), Paul M. Vreeswijk (DARK), Sami-Matias Niemi (NOT), report on behalf of a larger observation: We observed the afterglow of GRB 080330 (Mao et al., GCN 7537) with the NOT equipped with ALFOSC. We clealy detect the optical counterpart (Klotz et al., GCN 7536; Mao et al., GCN 7537, Schaefer & Guver, GCN 7538; Gomboc et al., GCN 7539; Bloom & Starr, GCN 7542). We measure R = 17.55 on March 30.17596 UT (32.1 min after the GRB), assuming R = 17.61 for the USNO star 1206-0188558 at RA = 11:16:57.541, Dec = +30:37:51.51. A 1800 s spectrum with ALFOSC was acquired starting 46 min after the GRB, covering the range 3700-8000 AA. A preliminary reduction of the data reveals absorption features in the spectrum from C IV, Zn II, Fe II, and Mg II at redshift z=1.51. We acknowledge excellent support from the NOT staff