Due to previously unforeseen new requirements on the extended lifetime of NACO until 2018, imposed by the delay of the ERIS project, it was decided to limit the number of relocations of NACO between VLT focal stations to a single one. A careful evaluation of the scientific and technical advantages and disadvantages was discussed by the Scientific Technical Committee in a special teleconference. NACO will not be mounted on UT4 in place of HAWK-I in Period 93 as announced in the Call for Proposals but will replace CRIRES on UT1 as of September 2014. CRIRES will already be dismounted by July 2014 and handed over to the CRIRES+ upgrade project. These constraints have been used to schedule UT1 and UT4 for Period 93.

The PIONIER science meeting will be held on 13–14 January 2014, followed by the VLTI community days (15–16 January), and is organized by IPAG, ESO and Eii. The spirit of the meeting is to provide a direct way for the community to exchange ideas with those at ESO who take care of the VLTI.

A public interferometric survey of the gaseous circumstellar environments of hot stars is being conducted. It is named OHANA — the Observatory survey at High ANgular resolution of Active OB stars. The survey is a bad weather/filler programme currently carried out by the VLTI group at the Paranal Observatory.

ATLAS is a ugriz imaging survey targeting ~4500 square degrees of the southern sky with the VLT Survey Telescope (VST). Data products resulting from the first release of the ATLAS public survey are now available via the dedicated Phase 3 query interface at the ESO Science Archive Facility.

The Gaia–ESO survey is the first of the ESO public spectroscopic surveys. It is a systematic study of more than 100 000 stars covering all the major components of the Milky Way. Data products resulting from the first release of the Gaia–ESO Public Spectroscopic Survey are now available via the dedicated Phase 3 query interface at the ESO Science Archive Facility.

ALMA proposals for Cycle 2 have been arriving since the publication of the Call for Proposals on 24 October 2013. ALMA Early Science Cycle 2, will start in June 2014. This Call provides an important opportunity for Early Science from this cutting-edge facility. The Cycle 2 period will span 17 months and users of any professional background, nationality, or affiliation may submit proposals.

The VIMOS Public Extragalactic Redshift Survey (VIPERS) is an ongoing Large Programme to map in detail the large-scale distribution of galaxies at 0.5<z<1.2. The project is focused on precisely measuring galaxy clustering and related cosmological quantities, while providing a detailed description of galaxy properties and evolutionary trends, when the Universe was about half its current age. The survey includes a broad legacy for the community, with fairly fast release of the measured redshifts.

If you wish to conduct a PhD in astronomy-astrophysics within one of the largest centres of astrophysical research in the world, which covers every subject from planets, stars, and galaxies to cosmology, you should seriously consider applying to the IMPRS studentship programme in Munich.

The Science Archive Facility now provides access to reduced scientific data obtained with the UVES spectrograph mounted on the VLT. More than 75000 spectra of point-like sources obtained in "ECHELLE mode" from the beginning of 2000 until 2013 are now published. The data consist of extracted wavelength- and, whenever possible, flux-calibrated 1-dimensional spectra in tabular format following the established ESO science data products standard.

ESO has recently expanded and improved the user experience in obtaining information about, and data from, Service and Visitor Mode runs on the Run Progress Pages. These pages, available via the User Portal link View your list of Observing Runs, now provide links for accessing all data from a run, data from one or more single OBs from a run, or even data from a single execution of a single OB. In addition, there is increased flexibility in how the user can specify the scope and content of pdf-formatted night logs on the Paranal Night Reports page. Full details are available by clicking on the Run Progress Legend tab on the Run Progress pages.