First light for the Four Laser Guide Star Facility (4LGSF) was achieved on 26 April 2016 (see the Release). The four 22-watt laser beams excite sodium atoms in the upper atmosphere to provide four point sources for adaptive optics systems to compensate the atmospheric turbulence. 4LGSF is an integral part of the Adaptive Optics Facility (AOF), which includes a deformable secondary mirror (DSM) and the GALACSI and GRAAL modules. The complete facility will gradually be commissioned over the next year and a half.

The ESO research studentship programme provides an outstanding opportunity for Ph.D. students to experience the exciting scientific environment at one of the world's leading observatories for a period of up to two years.

A new version of the Phase 2 page dedicated to the observation of moving targets has been released. This page offers a new web form for generation of ephemerides files directly in parameter file format (PAF) ready to be attached to an Observation Block (OB). The new ephemerides file generator in PAF format was developed at IMCCE in Paris, who kindly offered to host the web form for ESO Phase 2 observation preparation.

From the start of Period 97 (1 April 2016), updated versions of all VLT/VLTI data reduction pipelines are publicly available. The pipelines are available on the VLT instrument pipelines page.

A mailing list has also been created so that users can subscribe to receive announcements of new pipeline releases. To join this mailing list, please send an e-mail to eso-pipelines-announce-join.

In order to support data reduction by visiting astronomers and instrument scientists, ESO Reflex, the workflow environment for VLT/VLTI pipelines, has been installed on all offline workstations on Paranal. ESO Reflex, and the pipeline workflows that are supported by ESO Reflex (listed here), have been made available in Paranal from April 2016 as part of the change of Observing Period (P97).

The Call for Proposals for ESO Period 98 (1 October 2016 – 31 March 2017) closed on 31 March 2016. A total of 901 proposals were received, a significant drop with respect to Period 97 and returning to the levels of Periods 91–94. Included were also 26 proposals for Large Programmes and 7 for Public Surveys.

The ESO astronomical site monitor (ASM) system on Paranal has undergone a major overhaul. This upgrade was required due to hardware and software obsolescence and the demands of the Adaptive Optics Facility (AOF) to measure additional atmospheric properties (altitude of atmospheric turbulence along the observing path). This upgrade also includes a new display tool of the ambient conditions.

The Multi-Object Optical and Near-Infrared Spectrograph (MOONS), has officially passed the major milestone of Preliminary Design Review (PDR). MOONS will be able to deploy ~1000 fibres over a field of view of ~500 square arcminutes, the largest patrol field offered at VLT Nasmyth focus. Total wavelength coverage is 0.6–1.8 μm in the medium resolution (4000–6000) mode; higher (R~9000) resolution will be available for the Ca II triplet (~0.85 μm) region and one region at R~20000 in H-band.

Starting on Friday, 1 April 2016, the ESO Phase 3 services, including the dedicated FTP server, the release manager, and the delegation service, will be unavailable due to a scheduled software upgrade. All services are planned to be again up and running by Monday, 11 April 2016.

The Archive Science Group apologize for any inconvenience this may cause to Phase 3 users!

UltraVISTA is an ultra-deep VISTA near-infrared Public Survey of the central region of the COSMOS field. This third UltraVISTA data release (DR3) comprises stacked images in YJHKs and NB118 narrow-band filters together with a five-band merged catalogue. The principal difference with respect to the previous DR2 release is a substantial increase in exposure time in all five bands (by a factor of 1.7–4.6) in the four "ultra-deep stripes" regions, corresponding to an increase in depth of 0.4 – 0.8 mag.