The understanding of acceleration mechanisms in active galactic nuclei (AGN)
jets and the measurement of the extragalactic-background-light (EBL) density
are closely linked and require the detection of a large sample of
very-high-energy (VHE) emitting extragalactic objects at varying redshifts. We
report here on the discovery with the H.E.S.S. (High Energy Stereoscopic
System) atmospheric-Cherenkov telescopes of the VHE Gamma-ray emission from
H2356 - 309, an extreme BL Lac object located at a redshift of 0.165. The
observations of this object, which was previously proposed as a
southern-hemisphere VHE candidate source, were performed between June and
December 2004. The total exposure is 38.9 hours live time, after data quality
selection, which yields the detection of a signal at the level of 9.0σ
(standard deviations) .Comment: To appear on proceeding of 29th International Cosmic Ray Conference
(ICRC 2005
