Las Campanas Infrared Survey. V.

We present deep Keck spectroscopy, using the Deep Imaging Multi-Object Spectrograph and the Low-Resolution Imaging Spectrometer spectrographs, of a large and representative sample of 67 extremely red objects (EROs) to H=20.5 in three fields (SSA22, Chandra Deep Field South and NTT Deep Field) drawn from the Las Campanas Infrared Survey (LCIRS). Using the colour cut (I-H)>3.0 (Vega magnitudes) adopted in earlier papers in this series, we verify the efficiency of this selection for locating and studying distant old sources.

Spectroscopic redshifts are determined for 44 sources, of which only two are contaminating low-mass stars. When allowance is made for incompleteness, the spectroscopic redshift distribution closely matches that predicted earlier on the basis of photometric data.