TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR NUMBER: 12429 SUBJECT: GRB 111008A: Gemini spectroscopic redshift DATE: 11/10/09 06:31:58 GMT FROM: Andrew Levan at U.of Leicester A.J. Levan (Warwick), K. Wiersema, N.R. Tanvir (Leicester) report for a larger collaboration: "We obtained optical spectroscopy of the candidate counterpart of GRB 111008A (Saxton et al. GCN 12423, Levan et al. GCN 12426), with GMOS on Gemini-South. Observations were centred at 6000A, and cover the region from 3900-8100A. We see flux from the candidate afterglow down to ~5500A, and a broad absorption feature centred at ~7300A, with a brighter continuum red-ward of this. If interpreted as a DLA then this suggests that the redshift of GRB 111008A is z~5. We also find weak absorption lines of Ly-beta, OI(1302), CII(1334) and SiII (1260.5), consistent with a common redshift of z=5.0. We note that there was a typographical error in the co-ordinates of GCN 12426, which should have read RA(J2000) 04:01:48.24 DEC(J2000) -32:42:33.4 We thank Javier Gorosabel for pointing this error out, and apologise for any confusion."