Observations under poor seeing and several magnitudes of cloud extinction

These observations were taken with the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS) on the Gemini North telescope under poor seeing and several magnitudes of cloud extinction, with high humidity threatening and twilight approaching. The spectrum is that of a star-forming galaxy at a redshift of z = 0.16, corresponding to a distance of 1.9 billion light years. This is the first measurement of the distance scale to short gamma-ray bursts.