TITLE:   GCN CIRCULAR
NUMBER:  7290
SUBJECT: GRB 080210: Hobby-Eberly Telescope Absorption Spectroscopy
DATE:    08/02/10 20:01:00 GMT
FROM:    Antonino Cucchiara at PSU  <cucchiara@astro.psu.edu>

A. Cucchiara and D. B. Fox (PSU) report on behalf of a larger
collaboration:

"Starting on 2008 Feb 10.49 UT we used the Marcario LRS spectrograph
on the Hobby-Eberly Telescope to obtain 2x 1200s spectra of the
optical afterglow (Klotz, Boer & Atteia, GCN 7280) of GRB 080210
(Grupe et al., GCN 7281).  The coadded spectrum covers the wavelength
range 4100 to 10,500 Ang.  We clearly detect a Ly-alpha absorption
feature as well as several metal features corresponding to FeII, SiII,
CIV, AlII, MnII, the MgII doublet, and MgI at a redshift of z=2.64. No
clear emission lines are evident in our spectrum.  Our observations
are consistent with the redshift and features reported by Jakobsson et
al. (GCN 7286).  We thank HET Resident Astronomer John Caldwell for
performing this observation."