New damped Ly{alpha} absorbers

A total of 96 strong MgII absorption-line systems identified in Sloan Digital Sky Survey spectra were successfully observed with the prism at the predicted UV wavelengths of Ly{alpha} absorption. We found that 35 of the 96 systems had a significant probability of being DLAs. One additional observed system could be a very high N_HI_ DLA (N_HI_~2x10^22^atoms/cm^2^ or possibly higher), but since very high N_HI_ systems are extremely rare, it would be unusual for this system to be a DLA given the size of our sample.

Here we present information on our prism sample, including our best estimates of N_HI_ and errors for the 36 systems fitted with DLA profiles. This list is valuable for future follow-up studies of low-redshift DLAs in a small redshift interval, although such work would clearly benefit from improved UV spectroscopy to more accurately determine their neutral hydrogen column densities.