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. However, they come to ESO to work and study under the co-supervision of an ESO staff astronomer for a minimum of six months and up to two years.

The largest adaptive mirror ever built, the M4 mirror for ESO’s upcoming Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), has reached an important milestone in its development: all six petal-shaped segments that make up the mirror are now completed. M4, the fourth mirror in the light path of the telescope, can change shape quickly and very precisely, and is a key part of the ELT’s adaptive optics system.  

The VISTA Cycle 2 ESO Public Survey project -VVV eXtended- PI D. Minniti, P. Lucas, is carried out with VIRCAM on VISTA in the JHKs filters and covers a total of ~1540 deg² of the southern Galactic plane. This second data release contains observations taken between April 2018 and October 2019. They consist of both multi-filter JHKs observations and time series Ks data with photometric limit reaching typically Ks=17.5 AB mag.

The latest edition of ESO's journal for science and technology, The Messenger, is now available online. Issue 184 opens with an article on the impact of satellite constellations to observatories and ESO’s role in supporting the astronomy community. Next our readers will find a report on the scientific prioritisation community poll that took place in 2020. 

CONCERTO raw data from the commissioning runs on APEX between April and August 2021 have now been released. Selected astronomical targets were observed to demonstrate the capabilities of the instrument and optimize the observing strategies. These objects cover a range of science targets: the star forming region NGC6334 (Cat Paw Nebula, see also ESO announcement), the Crab nebula supernova remnant, the AS2UDSS deep field, and the galaxy cluster RXCJ1206. These relatively short integration data can be used to plan future observing programmes and, in some cases, for scientific work.

The Call for Proposals for observations at ESO telescopes in Period 109 (1 April 2022 - 30 September 2022) has been released. Please consult the Period 109 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 23 September 2021.

As of the shift starting August 30, all telescopes on Paranal are in science operations. HAWK-I has been recommissioned in the last days and is also ready. CRIRES commissioning concluded mid August, leaving CRIRES ready for P108. VISIR on-sky validation is ongoing, and it is expected to be available for P108. Therefore, all instruments announced for P108 will be available.

Following the closure of the Special Call for Period 107 on 1st September 2021, users will again be able to submit Director's Discretionary Time (DDT) proposals belonging to all the categories normally eligible through that channel, and not only for Target-of-Opportunity observations.

Between 12th and 18 July 2021 the second commissioning of the upgraded InfraRed Low-Order wavefront Sensor of MUSE, IRLOS, was carried out through an efficient collaboration between the local Paranal team and the remote support team in Garching. The goal of the IRLOS upgrade, which uses a new SAPHIRA detector with sub-electron readout noise, was to add at least two magnitudes to the limiting magnitude of the adaptive optics module GALACSI Narrow-Field Mode. Moreover, the low-order loop frame rate was increased to 500 Hz for brighter targets. The results of the second commissioning show that those goals have been met or exceeded.

The programmatic layer of the ESO science archive has been recently upgraded. The main new feature is the support of authorized data searches, but there are other improvements useful to the all users of the ESO programmatic layer.