A detailed report on the results of the ACA Standalone Cycle 8 2021 Supplemental Call is now available. The report details the proposal statistics and regional distributions, as well as the proposal distribution across science categories and receiver bands.

The report can be downloaded as a pdf document.

As announced in the P110 Call for Proposals, VIRCAM at VISTA is used to complete surveys and approved programmes. VIRCAM is available for Director’s Discretionary Time proposals until 15 December 2022 for observations to be conducted until March 2023 when VIRCAM will be dismounted. Only a fraction of the observing time during January and February 2023 will be available for science observations.

Technical activities to prepare VISTA for the arrival of the 4MOST spectroscopic survey instrument will take place starting from January.

The ESO research studentship programme provides an outstanding opportunity for PhD students to experience the exciting scientific environment at one of the world's leading observatories. ESO's studentship positions are open to students enrolled in a university PhD programme in astronomy or related fields. Students accepted into the programme work on their doctoral project under the formal supervision of their home university supervisor, but they come to ESO to work and study under the co-supervision of an ESO staff astronomer for a period of a minimum of 6 months and up to two years.

The closing date for this application round is 30 November 2022.

The ESO Public Survey project VMC, ESO program 179.B-2003, PI M. R. Cioni, targets the Magellanic Cloud system in three filters: Y, J and Ks. The main goals are the determination of the spatially resolved star formation history and study the three-dimensional geometry of the system. This new data release DR6 provides the complete set of observations covering the Large Magellanic Cloud, ~110 deg², taken between November 2009 and October 2018. It contains both newly released observations (61 tiles) and updated versions of the 7 LMC survey tiles previously released, reprocessed by CASU using the newer version of the pipeline v1.5 which includes improved photometric calibration.

The European Southern Observatory (ESO) and the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) Observatory are jointly organising a symposium with the main goal of maximising the science impact of surveys conducted by both organisation’s facilities.  The aims of the symposium are to raise awareness across the respective communities of survey capabilities and to build liaisons in preparation for synergetic surveys, as well as for multi-wavelength follow-up programs. To achieve this, the symposium will have sessions focussing on planned surveys and current and upcoming survey facilities, including SKA pathfinder and precursor instruments as well as the SKA, and ESO’s optical, near infrared and mm facilities. It will cover a variety of research areas: the Galaxy and Solar System science, galaxies and galaxy evolution, EOR and the high-redshift Universe, and transients and time-domain science. In addition, ample time will be reserved for more focussed discussion sessions to forge synergies between different teams and develop plans for collaborative surveys and cross-facility follow-up programs.

This data release provides access to reduced scientific 1D spectra obtained with FORS2, the visual and near-UV FOcal Reducer and low dispersion Spectrograph 2 on the VLT. Data acquired with one of the three spectroscopic modes of FORS2 (within the wavelength range of 330-1100 nm) are included in this release. These modes are long-slit spectroscopy (LSS) using a mask with 6.8′ slit length of different widths, and multi-object spectroscopy with movable slit blades (MOS, slit length about 20′′) or with masks (MXU, arbitrary slit length). The spectroscopic data have been reduced using the FORS2 pipeline version 5.6.1 or higher. Processing includes flat fielding, wavelength calibration, correction of spatial distortion, sky subtraction, optimal extraction of spectra, and flux calibration. The FORS2 pipeline extracts spectra from a single exposure. If several exposures on the same target are executed within the same observing template, the additional reduction step of stacking them together is performed using the ESOTK pipeline (version 0.9.5 or higher). In this case the single exposure spectra are made available as associated files, while the combined spectrum becomes the primary product. 

Proposals are invited for the Science Verification of the Enhanced Resolution Imager and Spectrograph (ERIS), a new VLT near-infrared instrument at the Cassegrain focus of UT4. ERIS has two science arms, SPIFFIER and NIX. SPIFFIER (IFS) is a medium-resolution integral field spectrograph covering J to K band. NIX is capable of imaging between J and M band and pupil-plane coronography. ERIS is designed to be used in conjunction with UT4's deformable secondary mirror. The atmospheric turbulence can be sensed with either a natural guide star, or a single artificial star generated with the Adaptive Optics Facility (AOF).

The first decade of ALMA has led to many exciting discoveries, and has resulted in over 2800 publications and counting. As ALMA starts on its second decade of operations, it is implementing an ambitious development roadmap that will ultimately quadruple the system bandwidth and vastly improve ALMA's observing efficiency for both continuum and spectral line science. To commemorate its first decade of science operations, the ALMA partnership is organizing a conference that will take a look back at the observatory accomplishments, highlight its latest results and look forward to future technical developments.

The Call for Proposals for observations at ESO telescopes in Period 111 (1 April 2023 - 30 September 2023) has been released. Please consult the Period 111 document for the main news items and policies related to applying for time on ESO telescopes. All technical information about the offered instruments and facilities is contained on ESO webpages that are linked from the Call. The proposal submission deadline is 12:00 CEST 27 September 2022.

The latest edition of ESO’s science and technology journal, The Messenger, is now available online. In issue 187, highlights include and article about CRIRES+ science verification results and a description of the ALMA Science Archive, which is being developed taking into account users experience with the goal of helping to maximise the scientific productivity of the observatory. The science section of this issue features articles describing the most recent results from the CARS survey and how the community can make use of its data release 1, as well as an overview of recent results in exoplanet science made with ESPRESSO.