The Call for Proposals for observations at ESO telescopes in Period 116 (1 October 2025 - 30 April 2026) has been released. Please consult the Period 116 document before applying for time on ESO telescopes. All technical information about the offered instruments and facilities can be found on the ESO webpages linked from the Call for Proposals. The proposal submission deadline is on 20 March 2025, 12:00 CEST.

ESO is pleased to announce the first ESO Science Writing School, which will take place on 4-8 August 2025, at the ESO headquarters in Garching, Germany.  

Are you a PhD student eager to dive into the cutting-edge scientific world at one of the most prestigious observatories on the planet? The ESO research studentship programme offers you a chance to do just that. This exceptional programme is open to students enrolled in a PhD programme in astronomy or related fields. You will continue your doctoral research under the formal supervision of your home university, but with the added benefit of spending a minimum of six months (Chile) or one year (Germany), and up to two years at ESO, working closely with a dedicated ESO staff astronomer.

The User Support Department again extends its sincere thanks to all those Principal Investigators and their Phase 2 delegates who participated in the 2024 online Paranal Service Mode User Satisfaction Survey. A total of 144 responses were received from the targeted campaign. As in the past, where possible, respondents who provided detailed comments have been contacted via e-mail. A summary report based on this latest User Satisfaction Survey is now available.

Thanks to a highly successful suite of instruments, the demand on usage of one of VLT Unit Telescope (UT4) has remained high in recent years. ESO has taken several actions to alleviate the situation, including the second generation deformable secondary mirror Phase A study. In parallel, a careful monitoring of operations at the telescope indicates that a large fraction of the telescope time observing with MUSE is spent with MUSE Wide Field Mode without Adaptive Optics, (NOAO). While the NOAO mode is essential for programmes gathering information over the 582-597 nm wavelength which is otherwise blocked by the Na Notch filter, the benefits of AO are many-fold. Not only the operations at the telescope are routine, but importantly seeing is improved in any observing conditions (bad seeing, light cirrus, high wind speed) while proven to be more stable during long exposure times.