TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR NUMBER: 16193 SUBJECT: GRB 140430A: NOT optical observations DATE: 14/04/30 23:43:05 GMT FROM: Daniele Malesani at Dark Cosmology Centre, Niels Bohr Inst D. Malesani (DARK/NBI), T. Kruehler (ESO Santiago), A. de Ugarte Postigo (IAA/CSIC and DARK/NBI), H. Dahle (Univ. Oslo), E. Soto (CUA), report on behalf of a larger collaboration: We observed the optical afterglow of GRB 140430A (Siegel et al., GCN 16190; Melandri et al., GCN 16192) with the Nordic Optical Telescope equipped with ALFOSC. We took a single 100-s image in the R filter starting at 22:00 UT (86.5 min after the GRB). The optical afterglow is well detected at coordinates (J2000): RA = 06:51:44.61 Dec = +23:01:25.1 with an uncertainty of 0.3". Assuming R = 15.13 for the USNO star at RA = 06:51:41.3, Dec = +23:01:44.0, we measure for the optical afterglow a magnitude R = 18.78 +- 0.02 (statistical error only). A 1800-s spectrum was acquired starting at 22:11 UT, at airmass 2.2-2.8, covering the wavelength range 3200-9100 AA. From a preliminary analysis, no absorption or emission features are seen in the spectrum. From the lack of a DLA feature down to ~4000 AA, we can set a redshift limit z < 2.3.