Overview

The expected Paranal Instrumentation and Facilities to be offered in Period of the call and changes foreseen for the following two periods are presented at the overview page.

Instruments and facilities

Pending a successful commissioning, the first ASGARD (HEIMDALLR/NOTT) observations are foreseen to take place at VLTI in P116.
A fraction of the ASGARD observing time is open to the community. Proposal submission and selection will be organized via a dedicated channel by the ASGARD consortium and will be advertised in the P116 Call for Proposal.

• MOONS - the Multi-Object Optical and Near-infrared Spectrograph – is expected to reach full Provisional Acceptance Europe (PAE) in Q4 2024 and be installed and commissioned on UT1 Nasmyth A in Q2-3 2025. MOONS is planned to be offered in P117 with early GTO in Period 116.
  
• The VLT Visitor Focus at UT1 is not available.
• FORS1, FORS1, the upgraded FORS instrument, is expected to be installed and see first commissioning in P116. FORS2 will thus be decommissioned in P117, and first commissioning of FORS1 without the MXU is planned to occur in P116. Subsequent semesters will see the retrofit of the MXU to FORS1 together with subsequent commissioning.
• UVES: In order to recover a progressive degradation in resolution in UVES blue arm camera, an intervention is foreseen, indicatively planned for Q4 2024, that should put UVES out of operation for a few weeks.
  
• CRIRES: Monitoring Programmes are offered in all modes.
• VISIR: ESO plans to decommission VISIR in the coming semesters, because the demand and allocations for this instrument have been very modest. Moreover, no further spare parts for maintaining the instrument are available. Proposers should take into account that VISIR will likely be decommissioned as early as P116.
• ERIS - We hope to be able to offer pupil tracking for standard NIX imaging and IFS observations in an upcoming period.
• 4MOST: The 4-metre Multi-Object Spectroscopic Telescope (4MOST) instrument’s PAE on the VISTA telescope is expected in Q1 2025. The VISTA telescope will be upgraded to facilitate the installation of 4MOST. Operations are expected to start in Q4 2025 at the earliest.
  
• ESPRESSO - A maintenance of the LFC is scheduled for Oct/Nov. 2023 aimed at improving the LFC current performance. The LFC status and performance will be updated in the ESPRESSO news webpage and in the user manual.
• GRAVITY+ Adaptive Optics (GPAO): More technical acitivies on GRAVITY+ AO will talke place in P115. The next and last major step will be the installation and commssioning of Laser Guide Star systems for VLTI-UTs during the middle of P116. It is foreseen to offer this new capability in P117.
• As the impact of a new AT medium configuration is still being debated, the decision to implement it is postoned to a later period.
• Pending a successful commissioning, the first ASGARD (HEIMDALLR/NOTT) observations are foreseen to take place at VLTI in P116. A fraction of the ASGARD observing time is open to the community. Proposal submission and selection will be organized via a dedicated channel by the ASGARD consortium and will be advertised in the P116 Call for Proposal.
• MATISSE in GRA4MAT with chopping on the UTs will be offered in P115.