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GCN Circular 4974

Subject
VLT/UVES observations of GRB060418
Date
2006-04-18T12:10:35Z (18 years ago)
From
Paul Vreeswijk at ESO <pvreeswi@eso.org>
Paul Vreeswijk (U. of Chile/ESO) and Andreas Jaunsen (U. of Oslo)
report on behalf of a larger collaboration:

"Following the Swift detection of GRB060418 (Falcone et al., GCN
4966), we triggered observations with the Ultraviolet and Visual
Echelle Spectrograph (UVES), mounted at Kueyen (UT2) of ESO's Very
Large Telescope (VLT). The observations were performed using the
Rapid-Response Mode, which allows for robotic VLT observations without
any human intervention, except for the slit alignment. Starting at
3:16 UT (10min after the Swift/BAT trigger), a series of exposures
with increasing integration times (3, 5, 10, 20, and 40min) were
performed with central wavelengths 390nm in the blue arm and 564nm in
the red, covering 330-670nm at a resolving power of ~43000. This was
followed by a 90min exposure with central wavelengths 437nm in the
blue and 860nm in the red, extending the wavelength coverage up to
950nm.

A preliminary analysis of the spectra shows various absorption
features, which can be identified with typical metal lines originating
in at least four intervening absorbers at redshifts: z=0.602, z=0.655,
z=1.106 and the highest at z=1.489. This confirms the GRB060418
host-galaxy redshift determination by Dupree et al. (GCN 4969).

We are very grateful for the excellent support of the Paranal staff,
and in particular that of Stefano Bagnulo, Nancy Ageorges and Stan
Stefl."
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