GCN Circular 18886
Subject
GRB 160117B: VLT/X-shooter spectroscopy
Event
Date
2016-01-18T05:35:54Z (10 years ago)
From
Antonio de Ugarte Postigo at IAA-CSIC <deugarte@iaa.es>
A. de Ugarte Postigo (IAA-CSIC, DARK/NBI), G. Pugliese (API/UvA),
D. Xu (NAOC/CAS), D. Malesani (DARK/NBI) report on behalf of a
larger collaboration:
We observed the afterglow of GRB 160117B (Sonbas et al., GCN 18875;
Yurkov et al., GCN 18877; Kruehler et al., GCN 18878, Malesani et al.
GCN 18884, Hentunen et al. GCN 18885) with ESO's Very Large
Telescope UT2 equipped with X-shooter. The spectra cover the range
between 3000 and 18000 AA. Observations consisted of 4x1200s
exposures, starting at 03:26 UT (13.45 hr after the GRB onset).
The optical counterpart is clearly detected in our grz acquisition images.
A preliminary analysis of the spectrum shows a clear continuum with
absorption features due to FeII, MgII, as well as emission features of [OII],
[OIII] and H-beta at a common redshift of 0.870, which we propose as
redshift of the GRB.
We acknowledge the excellent support provided by the Paranal staff.