Since Sept 2015, SPHERE ZIMPOL calibrations (flats, modulation calibrations, and pinhole images) suffer from the following issue: the first plane(s) of the raw frame data cube can show no or less counts from the lamp than the remaining planes of the cube.

zCOSMOS (PI: Simon Lilly, ESO Large Programme 175.A-0839) is a large redshift survey undertaken in the COSMOS field using the VIMOS spectrograph. About 600 hours were awarded to this large programme, which was executed between 2005 and 2010.

The issue with the GIRAFFE Medusa2^(*) calibration data reported on January 11, 2016, is fixed for most of the science data taken after 2015-11-27. All master calibrations delivered through the calSelector raw2master mode can be used for science processing.

Currently, the FLAMES/GIRAFFE Medusa2^(*) data are affected by a change of the slit geometry due to a major earthquake on 27-Nov-2015^(**). The currently available reference dispersion solutions are only valid before that date. The 'calSelector' service currently delivers these reference calibrations also for Medusa2 data taken after that date. Using them for pipeline processing will in most cases yield dispersion solutions of poor quality. We will replace these reference calibrations with better ones as soon as possible. The Medusa1 data are not affected by this.

The ESO/VST Public Survey ATLAS is targeting 4500 square degrees of the Southern sky in five filters u,g,r,i,z to depths comparable to those of the SDSS. This survey is also complemented by near-infrared data from the VISTA Hemisphere and VIKING surveys.

The Run Progress Report web pages allow PIs and delegates to follow the progress of their Service Mode observations. Now they also indicate when pipeline-processed reduced data are available for download. These reduced data are automatically generated using certified master calibrations and appear within two months of the data acquisition. Please see the Run Progress Legend for more details on how to take advantage of this new service.

Please be aware that the two catalogues:

New data products resulting from the ESO/VST Public Survey ATLAS are now available via the dedicated Phase 3 query interface at the ESO Science Archive Facility.

This second data release of ATLAS covers all the data collected from the start of observations in August 2011, through to end September 2013.

In order to improve security, we have implemented a small change in the use of the download shell script (e.g. downloadRequestXXXXXXscript.sh) attached to any complete archive data requests. The shell script is accessible once logged in at the following link:

New Data Release of VVV Photometric Catalogues via the ESO Science Archive Facility

VVV belongs to the suite of six public surveys being conducted at ESO's Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA). The VISTA Variables in the Via Lactea Survey (VVV) is a wide area (562 sq.degrees), near-infrared, multi-epoch imaging survey of the Milky Way bulge and disk. The initial survey in the five broadband filters Z, Y, J, H, Ks is followed by extensive multi-epoch observations in the Ks band.