As announced in February 2015, the FLAMES GIRAFFE focusing procedure has been updated, resulting in significant improvement to the spectral resolution of the instrument. The spectral resolution characterisation has been completed for all grating settings and the new resolving powers are listed under the FLAMES News.

The VLTI 2nd generation instrument GRAVITY provides a four way beam combination facility with laser metrology for micro-arcsecond astrometry and high resolution imaging and spectroscopy in the K-band, described in Eisenhauer et al 2011. The instrument has been shipped to Paranal and is undergoing testing in the integration lab. Laboratory fringes were achieved in July 2015 and the instrument will be installed in the VLTI combined laboratory later this year. More details here.

The VISTA Public Survey VISTA Variables in the Via Lactea (VVV) is a wide area (562 square degrees), near-infrared, multi-epoch imaging survey of the Milky Way Bulge and Disk. The initial survey in the five broadband filters Z, Y, J, H, Ks is followed by extensive multi-epoch observations in the Ks-band. This new release consists of three high level photometric catalogues superseding the previous release.

ESO has a prominent fellowship programme in both Garching (Germany) and Santiago (Chile), with a yearly application deadline (15 October). The goal of these fellowships is to offer outstanding early-career scientists the opportunity to further develop their independent research programmes in an exciting scientific environment with close contact to the activities and staff at ESO.

The first band- and field-merged science catalogue created from the imaging data obtained by the VST Photometric Hα Survey of the Southern Galactic Plane and Bulge (VPHAS+) has been released and it is available for download via the Catalogue Facility from the ESO Science Archive Facility.

New reduced data (spectra and images) resulting from the Public ESO Spectroscopic Survey of Transient Objects (PESSTO) are now available via the dedicated Phase 3 query interface at the ESO Science Archive Facility.

Following a recommendation by ESO's Scientific and Technical Committee (STC), a call for Letters of Intent for new Public Surveys with VIRCAM mounted on VISTA has been released. A Public Survey is understood as an observing programme in which the investigators commit to produce and make publicly available, within a defined time, a fully reduced and scientifically usable dataset that is likely to answer one or more major scientific questions, be of general use and broad interest to the astronomical community.

Joint ESO, Universidad de Chile, Universidad Andrés Bello Workshop:
ESO Vitacura, Santiago, Chile, 28 September – 02 October 2015

Astrobiology has become the meeting point for astronomers, biologists, geologists, and climatologists in solving the puzzle of how life originated in the Universe. Enormous progress has been made since the discovery of the first extra-solar planet (51 Peg b). The main aims of this workshop are: to bring together the major astrobiology groups; foster exchanges across all the major disciplines involved in the field of astrobiology, and in particular those working on climatology of Solar System planets; and include a strong parallel outreach programme.

New ALMA Science Verification data have been released. The release consists of M100 observations of the CO(1-0) line in Band 3 with the 7-m Array and Total Power (TP) Array, along with an update of previously released 12-m data, demonstrating the ALMA Compact Array (ACA, 7-m and TP Arrays) and data combination capabilities.
SV observations of 3C 286 in Band 6 continuum, demonstrating ALMA's polarization capability, are also released.

The status of the current ALMA observations can be followed in real time from the ALMA science portal.
The array has been cycled through the most compact configurations and will remain in the C34-6/7 extended configuration (baselines to 1.5km) until the end of Cycle 2 (end of September). A status report about the Cycle 1 and 2 observations and news from extension and optimisation of capabilities will be posted soon on the ALMA science portal.