TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR NUMBER: 8191 SUBJECT: GRB 080905B: VLT redshift DATE: 08/09/07 00:16:14 GMT FROM: Daniele Malesani at Dark Cosmology Centre, Niels Bohr Inst Paul M. Vreeswijk, Johan P. U. Fynbo, Daniele Malesani, Jens Hjorth (DARK/NBI), Antonio de Ugarte Postigo (ESO), report on behalf of a larger collaboration: We observed the field of GRB 080905B (Stroh et al., GCN 8182) with the ESO VLT equipped with FORS2. Several spectra were obtained with different grism choices, beginning on 2008 Sep 6.053 UT (8.34 hr after the GRB), and covering the wavelength ranges 3800-9500 AA at low to moderate resolution. In the acquisition images, we clearly detect a point source inside the refined XRT error circle (Osborne et al., GCN 8189), at the coordinates (J2000): RA = 20:06:57.90 Dec = -62:33:46.8 This position is consistent with that of the UVOT candidate afterglow reported by Stroh et al. (GCN 8182), the object being now significantly fainter (R ~ 20.2). We note that this position is 3.8" off the center of the bright 2MASS galaxy 2MASX J20065732-6233465, also visible in the DSS and in the UVOT images. Spectroscopy of the afterglow reveals resonance absorption features from several ions, including OI, SiII, CIV, FeII, AlII, AlIII, MgII, MgI, at a redshift z = 2.374. The detection of transitions from fine-structure levels of FeII indicates that this is the redshift of the GRB, under the assumption that these levels are populated by GRB afterglow ultraviolet photons. We also find evidence for an intervening absorber at z = 1.438. We acknowledge excellent support from the Paranal staff, in particular Elena Mason and Andres Pino.