The Call for Proposals for observations at ESO telescopes in Period 96 (1 October 2015 – 31 March 2016) has been released. Please consult the Call for Proposals document for the main news items and policies related to applying for time on ESO telescopes. All technical information about the offered instruments and facilities is contained on ESO webpages that are linked from the Call.
The deadline for proposals is 12:00 CET 26 March 2015.
The ESO research studentship programme provides an outstanding opportunity for Ph.D. students to experience the exciting scientific environment, at one of the world's leading observatories, for a period of up to two years. Studentship positions are open to students enrolled in a university Ph.D. programme in astronomy or related fields and work under the formal supervision of their home university but, for a period of between one and two years, they study at ESO under the co-supervision of an ESO staff astronomer.
The deadline for ESO Studentship applications has been moved to 01 May. Details will be provided in March.
The Swedish-ESO PI receiver for APEX (SEPIA) is a new instrument that is currently being commissioned. It will initially host an ALMA Band 5 receiver covering 159 to 211 GHz in dual-polarization, sideband-separating bands of 4 GHz width. SEPIA is offered for regular proposals in Period 96 (see the Call for Proposals), but ESO also invites the community to submit short Science Verification proposals with a deadline of 18 March 2015. Please find further details here.
The User Support Department (USD) invites principal investigators and their Phase 2 delegates to participate in the most recent user feedback campaign. The survey is designed to provide USD with the opinions of the science community on a number of services. As such it is an important way for the department to know where we are doing well, and where there is room for improvement.
The FLAMESGIRAFFE spectrograph is not kept at a controlled temperature, and thus, at the beginning of every observing block, GIRAFFE is re-focussed to take account of collimator temperature. The best focus position depends on temperature, grating and wavelength setting. The FLAMES Instrument Operation Team discovered that the software coefficients used to set the focus of GIRAFFE have changed since commissioning – presumably because of aging effects in the optics – and have measured and updated these coefficients. The updated values lead to a substantial increase in spectral resolution and sensitivity across all settings, particularly for the high resolution (HR) settings.
The ESO Library develops and maintains two major information resources: the telescope bibliography (telbib), a database of refereed articles that use observational data from ESO facilities, and the library catalogue. In order to provide an optimal viewing experience from a large number of devices, the web interfaces of both tools have been adjusted using the Responsive Web Design (RWD) approach. This assures that users can search and navigate both sites from various screens, including desktop computers, tablets and smartphones, with minimal resizing and scrolling. Please try these resources from your favourite device.
The European ARC network is organising a series of community events in preparation for ALMA Cycle 3 (expected deadline 23 April 2015). The purpose of these events is to introduce the new ALMA capabilities to the community, help ALMA users with their proposal preparation, and trigger new ideas for an even more efficient use of the ALMA facility.
A new installment of ALMA Science Verification (SV) data is available. This release contains several new datasets corresponding to four targets observed as part of the 2014 ALMA Long Baseline Campaign in order to demonstrate the long baseline (~10 km), high angular resolution, capability of ALMA. Maximum baselines used ranged from 12.2 to 14.9 km.
ESO one-dimensional (1D) spectra in tabular FITS format can now be displayed and processed with IRAF using the external package SPTABLE, thanks to a close collaboration between ESO and the IRAF developers. The popular IRAF ONEDSPEC package, including SPLOT, and the IRAF RV package are now able to process the 1D spectra from the spectroscopic ESO Public Surveys (PESSTO and Gaia-ESO), Large Programmes (ESSENCE, GOODS FORS2+VIMOS, and zCOSMOS) and internal data products (UVES ECHELLE, XSHOOTER ECHELLE and HARPS).
The VISTA Magellanic Survey (VMC) is releasing a new catalogue based on the Point Spread Function (PSF) photometry in three bands Y, J and Ks, in addition to the aperture matched catalogue, VMC Catalogue DR2, available since 7 January 2015. The PSF photometry catalogue is extracted from the deep tile images completed before October 2012. The VMC-PSF catalogue contains 12.7 million sources and covers an area of 7.5 square degrees in the LMC and 3.5 square degrees in the SMC. An extensive release description is available.
VISTA Deep Extragalactic Observations (VIDEO) is a deep near-infrared Public Survey which targets ~12 square degrees over the ELAIS-S1, the XMM-Newton Large Scale Structure (XMM LSS) and Extended Chandra Deep Field South (ECDFS) extragalactic fields. In this release (VIDEO-XMM DR3) a total of 560 individual single-OB tile images and the associated single-band source lists in the XMM LSS field are available, which have been reprocessed using version 1.3 of the VISTA reduction pipeline.
Both the VISTA Kilo-degree Infrared Galaxy Survey (VIKING) and the VST Kilo-Degree Survey (KiDS) are making their second data releases. The VIKING release covers all the highest quality data (images, weightmaps, single-band source lists) taken since the start of the survey in November 2009 up to September 2013. The KiDS release consists of coadded images, weight maps, masks and single-band source lists for 98 tiles that were completed between October 2012 and September 2013. The release also contains the associated multi-band source VIKING + KiDS catalogue of 17 million sources.
Ground and Space Observatories: A Joint Venture to Planetary Science ESO – ESA Workshop, ESO Vitacura, Santiago, Chile, 2–5 March 2015
Exploration of the Solar System and subsequent discoveries are made with planetary missions and ground-based observatories. These two means are complementary and are sometimes strategically linked. During this workshop, the synergies between these two paths will be explored, with the aim to foster collaboration between both communities. The workshop will showcase the current and future capabilities of ALMA for planetary science, encouraging planetary scientists to use this facility. See the workshop announcement for more details.
Angular and spectral resolutions are fundamental limitations to our understanding of the properties of galaxies in the nearby and distant Universe. Current facilities allow the ISM and star formation to be probed in unprecedented detail from the local Universe to intermediate redshift. The aim of this workshop is to further this understanding at high spatial and spectral resolution. Synergies between current and future facilities, particularly with ALMA, and between the extragalactic and Galactic communities, will be encouraged. Further information can be found on the workshop webpage.
The ESO ALMA Regional Centre (ARC) will organise another Community Days workshop in order to optimally prepare the European astronomical community for ALMA Cycle 3, whose call is due to be released in March 2015. The 2015 Community Days will focus on the practical aspects of proposal preparation as well as hands-on tutorials for the ALMA Observing Tool and the Simulators. These will enable novice and advanced users alike to create observing projects making full use of ALMA's scientific capabilities in Cycle 3. Further information can be found here; registration deadline is 27 March 2015.
Satellite galaxies, streams and the star cluster – dwarf galaxy interface are inter-related. Galactic satellites and streams should be regarded together – satellites result from low-mass substructures while tidal streams trace the disruption of these substructures by the host's gravitational potential. Both contribute to the assembly of the host galaxy and provide a unique opportunity to test and improve our understanding of structure formation at small and large scales. This workshop aims to bring together experts from both fields to explore the bigger picture. More details can be found on the workshop webpage; registration has closed.
Despite the huge difference in spatial resolution, Herschel sources provide ideal targets for ALMA follow-up. The workshop will focus on ALMA/Herschel scientific synergies and archival research with both archives. Mutual awareness of Herschel and ALMA data archive contents will be promoted with: science cases, covering a broad range of astrophysical topics; the exploration and visualization of Herschel and ALMA data products; and assistance to users in the preparation of Cycle 3 ALMA proposals based on existing Herschel data. For more details please refer to the workshop webpage; the deadline for oral presentations is 15 March 2015, and 31 March 2015 for participants.
Spitzer, Herschel and Planck have enabled important steps forward in our understanding of the distribution and properties of dust and star formation in nearby and distant galaxies. In the near future ALMA will open a new era of studies of resolved high-redshift populations. This meeting will be the opportunity to exchange new findings from the communities studying the properties of nearby and distant galaxies. More details can be found on the workshop webpage.
This workshop will explore some of the first science that will emerge from the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) in the next decade. The primary spectroscopic capability of E-ELT at first light will be provided by the HARMONI instrument, a visible and near-infrared integral field spectrograph.The meeting will bring together experts spanning a wide range of observational fields, from exo-planets to cosmology, to plan for future observations with HARMONI. More details on the workshop webpage.
Mass loss from cool Asymptotic Giant Branch and Red Supergiant stars inputs large amounts of material to the ISM and is an important process for understanding stellar lifecycles and galactic ecology. Significant advances in observations (e.g. VLTI and ALMA), and theory, provide an opportunity to revisit outstanding questions of late stellar evolution, such as the role of mass loss, magnetic fields and binarity. The meeting aims to bring together observers and theorists from the low and high mass stellar communities to explore the commonalities of evolved star mass loss. Further information can be obtained from the conference website or by email. The deadline for abstract submission is 6 April 2015.
The conference will cover both theory and observations of the large-scale structure of the Universe to discuss recent progress and future directions. Measuring the distribution of matter in the Universe as a function of time and space is a powerful probe of cosmology, both for gravity on scales much greater than the conventional tests of General Relativity and the origin of cosmic acceleration. Observations of the large-scale structure of the Universe, from a new generation of surveys are pushing the survey volume and redshifts, demanding improved theoretical understanding. More details can be found on the conference webpage. The registration deadline is 1 May 2015.
