The Science Verification (SV) for the Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch instrument (SPHERE) will take place on the nights of 1–11 December 2014. All community astronomers are kindly invited to participate in this opportunity to obtain early science with SPHERE and thus to demonstrate the scientific capabilities of this extreme adaptive optics instrument.
Call for SPHERE Science Verification Proposals
Published: 19 Sep 2014
An integral part of the commissioning of a new instrument at the VLT is the Science Verification (SV) phase. SV programmes include a set of typical scientific observations that should verify and demonstrate to the community the capabilities of the new instrument in the operational framework of the VLT Observatory. In accordance with its SV Policy and Procedures, ESO encourages the community to submit also highly challenging or risky science observations that will push SPHERE and the VLT to its limits in order to better understand the performance parameter space and its envelope. Such observations should focus on the instruments core modes in order to benefit a wide community.
A comprehensive description of SPHERE is available. The full text of the call for SPHERE SV proposals is available and a simple Latex template for the SV application can be downloaded.
Applications should be sent by EMAIL not later than 18:00 CEST on Wednesday 15 October 2014.