Foreseen Changes regarding La Silla, Paranal and APEX Instrumentation and Facilities

La Silla

  • Depending on successful commissioning, the Near Infra-Red Planet Searcher (NIRPS) will be offered in Period 107.
  • The installation and commissioning of the Son of X-shooter (SoXS) is expected to start during the first quarter of 2021.
  • As a consequence of the installation of SoXS, SoFI will be decommissioned possibly early during Period 106.
  • EFOSC2 will be decommissioned once SoXS enters regular operation, which is expected to happen in Period 108.

 

Paranal

Overview

An overview of the expected Paranal Instrumentation and Facilities to be offered for Period 105 and changes foreseen in Periods 106 and 107 is available.

General

  • Further improvements of the new Phase 1 system (p1) will take place in Period 106 and following.
  • In Period 105, Visitor (and Service) mode observations in any VLT instrument of UT2 can be a ffected by Rapid Response Mode (RRM) observations, except if they are striclty time-critical; this scheme will be extended to all UTs in Period 106.

UT instruments and facilities

  • MOONS - the Multi-Object Optical and Near-infrared Spectrograph - is expected to be installed at the UT1 Nasmyth A focus during the third quarter of 2021.
  • Depending on successful commissioning during Periods 104 and 105, CRIRES may be off ered in Period 106 following its upgrade into a cross-dispersed echelle spectrograph.
  • ERIS is expected to be installed and commissioned during the second semester of 2020 at the UT4 Cassegrain focus.
  • In P106, ESPRESSO will be offered with a high resolution mode employing a 4x2 binning. This mode will benefit low signal-to-noise observations.

VLTI instruments and facilites

  • Depending on a successful commissioning, additional modes for MATISSE may be offered in Period 106.
  • Provided successful commissioning during Period 104, the possibility to use GRAVITY as a fringe tracker for MATISSE (GRA4MAT) in foreseen to be offered in P106.

Survey telescopes and instruments

  • Due the installation of 4MOST, Period 107 is expected to be the last period of operations of VIRCAM.
  • Similarly, Period 107 is the last period for which the operation of VST and OmegaCAM is guaranteed under the current agreement between ESO and INAF.
 

APEX

  • LABOCA: this 870 µm bolometer array may be replaced by a wider-field camera, A-MKID at the end of 2020