HST survey for Lyman limit systems. I.

The quasars were selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey data to search for intervening Lyman limit system (LLS) absorption. The sample was subjected to the constraints that the quasars have AB magnitude g'<18.5, quasar emission redshift 2.3<z_em_<2.6, and lack strong BAL or z~z_em_ absorption.

The median emission redshift of the sample is {bar}z=2.403. The data were all processed using custom data reduction pipelines, and the one-dimensional spectra have sufficient signal-to-noise ratio and resolution to easily identify absorption from LLS over the redshift range 1.2<z<2.5. The WFC3 data presented here are the first non-calibration spectra from the G280 grism.