By the deadline on October 15, 2024, ESO received nine letters of intent for the ESO public survey with KMOS. These letters of intent cover a wide range of scientific topics from young stellar objects to the evolution of galaxies at cosmic noon and beyond. There are three submitted letters of intent covering galactic and stellar evolution topics, followed by the local universe (two letters of intent) and galaxy evolution at higher redshift (four letters of intent). Nine PIs and more than one hundred co-Is are participating in these scientific projects. The overall total time request is equivalent to an over-subscription by a factor 5.

This is the initial announcement for the upcoming ESO workshop "Galactic Ecosystems under the Microscope: Lessons from High-Resolution Studies" at ESO Garching, 7-11 July 2025. This workshop will explore the latest developments in resolved galaxy properties and evolution. With next-generation observatories such as JWST, ELT and SKA, and upgrades to ALMA and VLA, a new era is being entered in understanding these critical aspects of galaxies throughout cosmic history.

The deadline for proposal submission for Period 115 (1 April 2025 - 30 September 2025) was 26 September 2024. 763 valid proposals were submitted. On the VLT, the most demanded ESO instrument was MUSE with a request of 233 nights, followed by ESPRESSO with 214 nights, and XSHOOTER with 182 nights. HARPS/NIRPS on the ESO 3.6-metre telescope was the most demanded instrument at La Silla, with a combined request of 202 nights. The figure above shows the time request since Period 62, for Paranal (VLT/I), La Silla, and APEX. The fluctuations since Period 106 are partly because Large Programmes are offered only in even periods since P106. The highest peak in P106 is due to the extension of the proposal submission deadline during the pandemic.

This ESO workshop will focus on variability in young stellar objects and its role in the evolution of their protoplanetary disks. Specifically, addressing accretion and ejection variability and their connection to outer disk scales. Such variability is observed at the time of formation of stars and planets, two closely linked events. With the ratio of accretion to ejection still not fully understood, it remains an open question how exactly protoplanetary disks lose their mass and disperse. Since the mass budget within disks directly influences how and where planets can form, it is critical to understand and discuss results from the time-dependent nature of these environments. ESO welcomes researchers to join in May 2025.

The X-Shooting ULLYSES project (XShootU, ESO programme ID 106.211Z) aims to provide near-UV to near-IR spectra for the massive stars targeted by the HST Director’s Discretionary programme ULLYSES. This first public data release (DR1) contains UVB and VIS X-Shooter spectra (wavelength coverage of 300-1020 nm) of 232 massive stars in the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds (LMC, SMC). All stars were observed in STARE Mode, using 0.8” and 0.7” slits for the UVB and VIS, respectively, resulting in a resolving power of ~6700 in the UVB and ~11400 in the VIS. The observations were spread on 102 different nights from October 2020 to Juli 2021 and include 129 LMC and 113 SMC stars. Both individual and co-added spectra are included in the release. Generally, individual exposures (INDIV1D) are available as ancillary files, and co-added spectra with UVB and VIS merged (COADD1D) as the main science spectra, except for some of the binaries, for which only the individual exposures are provided. Detailed information is available in the related documentation.