Intra-Chile Workshop, Vitacura, Santiago, Chile, 2–3 March 2017

Globular clusters are no longer a proxy for a single stellar population. High-precision photometric and spectroscopic observations have been revealing multiple generations in young and old massive clusters in the Milky Way and beyond. The workshop will bring together both observers and theoreticians who are trying to solve the question of how star clusters form and evolve, and the connection with their host galaxy.

The COSMOS2015 catalogue (Laigle et al. 2016) contains precise photometric redshifts and stellar masses for more than half a million objects over the 2 square degree COSMOS field. Including YJHKs DR2 images from the UltraVISTA ultra-deep near-infrared survey, Y-band from Subaru/Hyper-Suprime-Cam and infrared data from the SPLASH Spitzer legacy programme, this near-infrared selected catalogue is highly optimised for the study of galaxy evolution and environments in the early Universe.

More than ninety thousand spectra and a redshift catalogue have now been released from the VIMOS Public Extragalactic Redshift Survey (VIPERS), the Public Spectroscopic Survey carried out under ESO Large Programme 182.A-0886, PI L. Guzzo. This is the largest spectroscopic galaxy redshift survey conducted so far with VLT Paranal facilities.

The Joint ALMA Observatory (JAO) will start the next cycle of observing (Cycle 5) in October 2017. A Call for Proposals with detailed information on Cycle 5 will be issued in March 2017, with a deadline for proposal submission in April 2017. The pre-announcement highlights aspects of the Cycle 5 proposal Call that are needed to plan proposals.

A report on ALMA Cycles 1 & 2 with observing and completion statistics, data reduction and delivery, and publication statistics is available.
Cycle 4 started on 30 September 2016 and continues with the array in the more compact configurations transitioning from C40-4 (0.93” beam at 100 GHz; 704 m longest baseline) to C40-3 (1.3” beam at 100 GHz; 460 m longest baseline) as austral summer begins. The very good weather has allowed high frequency observations (above 400 GHz). Data processing and delivery is proceeding smoothly using the Cycle 4 calibration and newly commissioned imaging pipelines and the Cycle 3 backlog is shrinking. Deliveries of Cycle 3 and Cycle 4 data products continue.

A new installment of Science Verification (SV) data is available. This release contains data on the following SV targets:

• Arp 220 spectral line observations in Band 5 (H₂O, CS, HNC) with the 12-m Array
• Sgr B2(N) spectral scan observations across most of the Band 5 tuning range with a hybrid of the 12-m Array and the 7-m Array
• VY CMa spectral line polarization observations of SiO and water lines in Band 5 with the 12-m Array.

A new release of the Public ESO Spectroscopic Survey for Transient Objects (PESSTO) is available. This release adds 1350 spectra and 383 images to the previously published PESSTO data. All the EFOSC2 (2851) and SOFI (226) spectra, and all the reduced SOFI images (775), obtained during the first four years (April 2012–April 2016) of PESSTO operations covering 1168 distinct transient objects, are available via the Phase 3 query interface at the Science Archive Facility.

On 26 October 2016, the ESO Finance Committee approved several major contracts for optical components as part of the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) construction phase. This marks another key milestone towards first light in 2024 of the world's largest optical/near-infrared telescope.

A strong Research and Development (R&D) programme is at the core of ESO's mission to build and operate state-of-the-art facilities for the advancement of astronomical research. Following the framework of the prestigious Fellowship Programme, ESO is awarding one postdoctoral fellowship to an outstanding early-career young researcher in engineering or technical disciplines to further develop her/his independent research programme by joining one of the on-going projects.

The User Support Department (USD) again extends its thanks to all those Principal Investigators and their Phase 2 delegates who filled in this September's on-line Paranal Service Mode User Satisfaction Survey. A total of 187 responses were received from our targeted campaign. We have contacted, where possible, those respondents who provided detailed comments. A summary report of this latest User Satisfaction Survey is now available.