The deadline for proposal submission for Period 102 (1 October 2018 - 1 April 2019) was 28 March, 2018. 916 valid proposals were submitted, including 23 Large Programmes, of which four are GTO Large Programmes. The number of proposals for P102 is very similar to that of Periods 91 (893), 92 (892), 93 (898), 94 (901), 98 (901), 99 (887), 100 (895) and 101 (899). This confirms the levelling off observed after the peak of Periods 95 (934), 96 (960) and 97 (1024).
ESO Period 102 Proposal Submission Statistics
Published: 24 Apr 2018
On the VLT the most requested ESO instrument was MUSE with 277 nights, followed by X-shooter with 274 nights, and FORS2 with 222 nights. HARPS on the ESO 3.6-metre was the most demanded instrument at La Silla, with a request of 334 nights. The new instrument ESPRESSO (Echelle SPectrograph for Rocky Exoplanet and Stable Spectroscopic Observations) was offered for the first time to the community in single-telescope mode and yielded a request of 140 nights.
In Paranal, the telescope with the highest oversubscription is UT2-Kueyen, with a total request of 557 nights, followed by UT4-Yepun (485 nights), UT1-Antu (369 nights) and UT3-Melipal (125 nights). On account of the heavy load on UT4, no Large Programmes were offered on this telescope in P102.
Following the steady trend observed during the last semesters, the request for Service Mode kept exceeding 80%.
The percentages of submitted proposals across science categories were:
- Cosmology and Intergalactic Medium 18.9%
- Galaxies 21.0%
- ISM, Star Formation & Planetary Systems 31.5%
- Stellar Evolution 28.6%.
Proposals will be reviewed by the Observing Programmes Committee, which meets in May. Proposers will be informed of the outcome of the review process beginning of July.