TITLE: GCN GRB OBSERVATION REPORT NUMBER: 3201 SUBJECT: GRB 050408: Emission and absorption redshift DATE: 05/04/09 07:17:46 GMT FROM: Edo Berger at Carnegie Obs Edo Berger, Mike Gladders, and Gus Oemler (Carnegie Observatories) report: "On 2005, April 9.22 UT we obtained a spectrum of the optical afterglow (GCN 3193) of GRB 050408 (GCN 3189) with LDSS-3 on the Magellan/Clay telescope. We find a broad emission line which we interpret as [OII]3727 at a redshift of z=1.236 and an absorption doublet which we interpret as MgII 2796/2803 at the same redshift. Given a fluence of about 3.3e-6 erg/cm^2 the isotropic-equivalent gamma-ray energy is 1.3e52 erg."