Science Users Information

These pages are aimed at ESO community astronomers and contain all the information required in order to prepare, execute, process and exploit observations with ESO facilities. They also provide information on the scientific activities taking place at ESO. Details can be accessed via the navigation menu.

ESO Science Announcements

VLT UT3 Recovery from Cooling Liquid Spillage

Published: 30 Oct 2025

Due to a cooling liquid spillage, UT3 has been out of operations since October 23. The recovery of the affected systems is ongoing, please consult the LPO news page for updates. At the time of writing, the recovery sequence foresees to restart science operations first with SPHERE, then CRIRES and then X-Shooter. The restart with SPHERE and CRIRES is expected to take place in early November, while the X-Shooter recovery will take several more weeks. This is due to the contamination of X-Shooter with cooling liquid that requires careful cleaning and realignment of optical elements. 

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The Future of UV Astronomy in the Age of HWO

Published: 28 Oct 2025

Find out more about the Future of UV Astronomy in the Age of HWO meeting. Don't miss your chance to register - the deadline is 5 November 2025. Join the discussions shaping the future of UV science! The workshop will take place on 16 December 2025 at ESO, Garching bei München, extended to a consortium meeting (by invitation) on 15 & 17 December 2025 at the Carl von Siemens Foundation, München. 

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Registration is now Open for the ESO Summer School 2026 on Scientific Communication

Published: 28 Oct 2025

Given the success of its first edition, ESO is delighted to announce the second edition of its Summer School on Writing and Communicating your Science to be held in Garching, from 20-24 July 2026. 

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Fifth and Final Data Release of the VST-ATLAS Public Survey

Published: 28 Oct 2025

The data released in DR5 are the final VLT Survey Telescope (VST) ATLAS stacked images and associated source lists taken from observations by VST from October 2017 to the end of the survey in January 2021 under ESO program ID 177.A-3011. These new data mainly comprise the ATLAS NGC extension at Dec<-20 deg. DR5 presents new and updated CASU (Cambridge Astronomical Survey Unit) images and source lists and also a full re-release of multi-band catalogue data from the Wide Field Astronomy Unit (WFAU) at Edinburgh, representing the "best" data. Any other un-updated data is still available within DR4 and earlier releases. DR5 data also includes the final ATLAS global photometry calibration.

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Record Number of Observing Hours in Cycle 11

Published: 28 Oct 2025

The ALMA Observatory is delighted to announce that Cycle 11 has set a new all-time record in the number of science-quality observing hours (QA0 PASS observations) delivered across all three arrays. During Cycle 11, ALMA successfully acquired a total of 4,496 hours of science-quality data with the 12-m Array, surpassing for the first time the ambitious goal of 4,300 hours offered. In addition, 4,201 hours were delivered with the 7-m Array, and 3,240 hours with the Total Power Array.

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The Messenger

The Messenger 194 is now available. Highlights include:

  • Doyon, R., Bouchy, F. et al.: NIRPS Joins HARPS: Setting New Standards at Infrared Wavelengths
  • Nazari, P., Jerabkova, T. et al.: Artificial Intelligence Usage by ESO Telescope Users
  • De Breuck, C., Díaz Trigo, M.: The Promises and Challenges of the ALMA Wideband Sensitivity Upgrade

The ESO Science Newsletter

The September 2025 issue is now available.

The ESO Science Newsletter, mailed approximately once per month, presents the most recent announcements. Subscription is controlled through the Manage Profile link on the User Portal. Back issues (2013-) are archived.

Citing ESO data in research papers

Researchers are kindly asked to indicate the identifiers (programme IDs or Data DOIs) of the (new or archival) observations they used in their papers as explained in ESO’s data citation policy. This enables the telbib curators to cross-link research output to make data Findabie, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable as suggested by the FAIR Principles.  

Pitch Your Research to ESO COMM

Are you an author on an upcoming scientific study based on ESO data that could be relevant to journalists or the wider public? Or are you a Principal Investigator on ESO observations with potential to become stunning images? If so, please consider sending to ESO your paper and/or a preview of the image(s) obtained with ESO telescopes.