  The long burst GRB 050717 was observed simultaneously by the Burst Alert
Telescope (BAT) on Swift and the Konus instrument on Wind. Significant hard to
soft spectral evolution was seen. Early gamma-ray and X-ray emission was
detected by both BAT and the X-Ray Telescope (XRT) on Swift. The XRT continued
to observe the burst for 7.1 days and detect it for 1.4 days. The X-ray light
curve showed a classic decay pattern; the afterglow was too faint for a jet
break to be detected. No optical, infrared or ultraviolet counterpart was
discovered despite deep searches within 14 hours of the burst. Two particular
features of the prompt emission make GRB 050717 a very unusual burst. First,
the peak of the nu Fnu spectrum was observed to be 2401(-568/+781) keV for the
main peak, which is the highest value of Epeak ever observed. Secondly, the
spectral lag for GRB 050717 was determined to be 2.5 +- 2.6 ms, consistent with
zero and unusually short for a long burst. This lag measurement suggests that
this burst has a high intrinsic luminosity and hence is at high redshift (z >
2.7). Despite these unusual features GRB 050717 exhibits the classic prompt and
afterglow behaviour of a gamma-ray burst.
