In February 2018 ESO announced that, starting from Period 104, Large Programmes will only be offered in even periods, i.e., periods with a proposal submission deadline at the end of March or early April. ESO takes this opportunity to encourage the community to submit Large Programmes that extend over the minimum number of periods that are required scientifically. From Period 104 onwards ESO will strive to execute Large Programmes more quickly (aiming for two semesters by default).

Large Programme proposals will also be accepted for VISTA (and VST) without restrictions. Both VIRCAM on VISTA and OmegaCAM on VST are expected to be scheduled until late 2021.

ESO, Garching, Germany 1 July–9 August 2019

The first ever ESO Summer Research Programme will provide a unique opportunity to students who are not yet enrolled in  PhD programmes to carry out a six-week long research project at the ESO Headquarters in Garching. This fully-funded programme will allow participants to choose between a wide range of research projects, covering many areas of astronomy from comets to cosmology. The ESO Summer Research Programme will also provide opportunities beyond research, including lectures, a mini-workshop, and many social activities.

ESO, Garching, Germany, 17–21 June 2019  

The VLT provides a powerful suite of visible and infrared instruments, including unique capabilities like coherent and incoherent combinations of the four 8-metre Unit Telescopes and a multi-laser guided adaptive optics system.  In combination with ALMA, it represents comprehensive coverage across  the full parameter space encompassing ground-based observations in visible, infrared and sub-mm wavelengths. With the advent of ESO's Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) the VLT will take on a new role. It will still serve a large community and will continue to provide unique data. Its strengths will include a suite of versatile instrumentation on four 8-metre telescopes, the spatial resolution achievable by interferometry and a flexible operations model. The VLT, VLTI and the instrumentation have been maintained at peak performance and new capabilities have been developed.

A discussion of future science served by the VLT should be the basis for its development in the ELT era. The ELT, VLT in its many functions and the ESO 4-metre telescopes will form a powerful astrophysics resource. The new role of the VLT needs to be defined and this workshop will provide a discussion forum aimed at shaping the VLT's future.

ESO, Garching, Germany, 6–8 May 2019

4MOST is a state-of-the-art, high-multiplex, optical spectroscopic survey facility currently under construction for ESO’s 4-metre VISTA telescope. During the first five years of operations 4MOST will be used to execute a comprehensive programme of both Galactic and extragalactic Public Surveys, and 30% of the observing time during this period will be available to the community. The process of selecting Community Public Surveys will be initiated by a Call for Letters of Intent for Public Spectroscopic Surveys, to be issued by ESO in mid-2019. In preparation of this Call, ESO and the 4MOST Consortium are jointly organising a workshop to prepare the ESO community for this exciting scientific opportunity, to assist potential PIs in successfully responding to the Call, and to foster scientific collaborations between the community and the 4MOST Consortium.  

Washington D.C., USA 29–30 May 2019

The Space Telescope Science Institute, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics , the Johns Hopkins University, ESO and Associated Universities, Inc. are organising a Memorial Symposium to celebrate the life and work of Riccardo Giacconi. The symposium will cover the various phases of Riccardo’s career and achievements. It will be held in Washington, D.C. at the National Academy of Sciences. A Science Organising Committee is being established to develop the programme and invite speakers. Interested participants are requested to contact the organisers via this email address before 28 February 2019 in order to facilitate planning as there will be a limit to the number of attendees.

ESO, Garching, Germany 12 March 2019

In April 1999, the first of the twin workhorses of the VLT, FORS1, started regular science operations. In September 1999 its twin, FORS2 arrived at Paranal and entered regular service in April 2000. Over the years, the two FORS instruments have provided unique data, leading to many astronomical discoveries. Both instruments have been amongst the most prolific Paranal instruments. In March there will be a one-day event celebrating the scientific discoveries made with these successful instruments. Registration is open and further details are available at the meeting website.

Annecy, France 8-12 April 2019

The Third ASTERICS-OBELICS International School will be held in the framework of OBELICS (Observatory E-environments LINked by common ChallengeS) work package of H2020 – ASTERICS project. The school is intended for a large audience including PhD students, postdocs, and senior researchers working in astrophysics and astroparticle physics. It will provide theoretical and hands-on training to acquire efficient and fast computer programming techniques, as well as skills for improving their scientific data analysis software. The registration deadline is 28 February 2019.

Bologna, Italy 6–9 May 2019

The theme for the First CTA Symposium is “Science opportunities with CTA”. Through a combination of invited and contributed talks, as well as poster sessions, the meeting aims to gather the larger multi-wavelength and multi-messenger communities and set up new channels of communications and synergies among them and their results (see the preliminary programme). Registration is now open and there is also a call for contributed talks.

ESO, Garching, Germany 3–5 June 2019

Registration is now open for the ESO ALMA Development workshop. This workshop aims to bring together a wide range of groups working on the continued development of ALMA in order to optimally coordinate these activities in light of the three-yearly ESO call for development studies, which is expected to be issued before the workshop. A particular emphasis will be given on presenting the ALMA 2030 development roadmap. Further details, including an outline of the programme can be found on the workshop webpage. The registration deadline is 2 May 2019.

The latest edition of ESO's quarterly journal, The Messenger, is now available online. In issue 174 you will find news, articles and workshop reports from ESO. Some highlights from this issue include: an introduction to the new SPECULOOS Southern Observatory; spectacular ALMA observations of planet-forming discs; key results from the KMOS^3D study probing galaxy evolution; and a tribute to Riccardo Giacconi. The full pdf can be downloaded here and hardcopies are available on subscription.