The VISTA Magellanic Survey (VMC) aims at the determination of the spatially resolved star formation history and three-dimensional geometry of the Magellanic system, reaching sources below the oldest main-sequence turn-off with multi-epoch Ks mean magnitudes for pulsating variable stars. This new data release (DR4) is based on observations of twelve survey fields covering a total of about 18 square degrees, acquired between November 2009 and August 2013, with at least three visits per field in Y and J filters and 12 in Ks.

Celebrating ESO's achievements and perspectives from 10 years of Tim de Zeeuw as Director General
ESO Headquarters, Garching, Germany, 28–30 August 2017

Planning is underway for a conference to mark the decade of Tim de Zeeuw as Director General on the occasion of his departure from ESO. The conference will feature mostly invited talks and will extend from Monday afternoon until Wednesday midday. Full details and registration information will be available soon on the conferences and workshops page. Please mark your calendar.

The Users Committee (UC) represents ESO's astronomical community at large and acts as an advisory body to the ESO Director General on matters related to the performance, scientific access, operation and user interfaces to the La Silla Paranal Observatory and ALMA. The annual meeting of the UC is scheduled at ESO Headquarters on 9–10 May 2017. In preparation for the upcoming meeting, the UC has designed a Poll which you are kindly invited to complete.

As announced in the Call for Proposals for Period 100, no science observations are foreseen with APEX from October 2017 to March 2018. This extended shutdown period is required to perform a number of major telescope maintenance activities, such as the replacement of the subreflector, the gearboxes and the shutter mechanism.

The Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch instrument (SPHERE) on VLT UT3 was commissioned in May – October 2014. Selected stellar targets were observed to demonstrate the capabilities of the instrument. The data are packaged by science targets with sets of matching calibration data and are available from the SPHERE commissioning page.

Following the call for ideas for selection of target field(s) for a Public MUSE Deep Field, six submissions were received. These were carefully assessed by a committee of community experts. Many of the proposals were felt to be scientifically interesting, but unfortunately none were judged to be urgent or compelling enough to warrant the very large allocation of up to 60 nights laid out in the call, especially in view of the huge oversubscription for MUSE. The campaign strategy as originally envisioned also carried risks, which only crystallised during the assessment process, most significantly due to lack of agreement with JWST and HST to undertake a joint public campaign.

The ESO Public Survey ATLAS with VST is targeting 4500 square degrees of the southern sky in u,g,r,i,z to depths comparable to those of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey SDSS. Its wide wavelength coverage, from the u- to z-band complements the VISTA VHS and VIKING Surveys in YJHK bands. This third release provides stacked reduced images, associated source lists and the band-merged catalogue from the beginning of observations in August 2011 to end September 2014.

The Call for Proposals for observations at ESO telescopes in Period 100 (1 October 2017 – 31 March 2018) has been released. Please consult the Call for Proposals 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 deadline for proposals is 12:00 CEST 30 March 2017.

As the first generation of ESO Public Surveys was completing their observations on the VLT Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA), ESO issued a Call for new VISTA Public Surveys. The extensive process of the evaluation of proposals and preparation of Survey Management Plans for the second cycle of VISTA Public surveys has now been almost completed. Seven new projects will start operations in P99 (April – September 2017) covering a wide range of scientific topics.

Science workshops are an essential component of ESO's programmes and represent a unique opportunity to promote and foster ideas and collaborations within the scientific community. Every year, through the Directorate for Science, ESO provides support and funding to organise two workshops in Santiago and four in Garching, as well as co-funding some external workshops (see ESO Workshops calendar). A new Call has been issued inviting community astronomers to team up with ESO staff and fellows in Chile and/or in Germany to submit proposals for ESO workshops to be held in 2018.