Joint ESO, Universidad de Chile, Universidad Andrés Bello Workshop:
ESO Vitacura, Santiago, Chile, 28 September – 02 October 2015
Astrobiology has become the meeting point for astronomers, biologists, geologists, and climatologists in solving the puzzle of how life originated in the Universe. Enormous progress has been made since the discovery of the first extra-solar planet (51 Peg b). The main aims of this workshop are: to bring together the major astrobiology groups; foster exchanges across all the major disciplines involved in the field of astrobiology, and in particular those working on climatology of Solar System planets; and include a strong parallel outreach programme.
The 96th Observing Programmes Committee met on 19–21 May 2015. A total of 1168.4 (8-hour equivalent) nights of visitor and service mode observations were allocated on the VLT/VLTI, VISTA, VST, the 3.6-metre, NTT and APEX telescopes. The following announcement provides details of Phase 2 for Service Mode observations.
With the release of the telescope schedule for October 2015 – March 2016, preparation of Service Mode (SM) observations (Phase 2) starts. The deadline for the submission of the Phase 2 material for Period 96 observations is 6 August 2015. Detailed information on Phase 2 observation preparation can be found here.
As previously announced, NAOS-CONICA (NACO) was moved to the Nasmyth A focus of Antu and the failed CONICA detector was replaced by the long wavelength detector from the decommisisoned ISAAC instrument. Operations were resumed in January 2015 but the camera wheel axis became uncoupled in March 2015 and one of the detector quadrants failed to operate. The current status is that the camera wheel is fixed in the S13 position (13 mas pixel scale, 14x14 arcsecond field of view) and only three detector quadrants are working. Period 95 science users of NACO have all been notified.
KMOS is now on Facebook. There, you can join the KMOS group to discuss observation strategies, data reduction, calibration or science with KMOS. Your postings will be used to update the Science Data Products Forum. Don't miss this opportunity!
ESO/ESA Workshop, ESO Headquarters, Garching, Germany, 24–27 November 2015
ESO and the European Space Agency (ESA) generate a significant fraction of science data from ground and space for the European and international astronomical community. These data allow access both directly for PIs and for the community at large through powerful science archives. The objective of the workshop is to present and discuss the various approaches to science data management in spacecraft missions and ground-based facilities for astronomy.
Maternushaus, Cologne, Germany, 6–13 September 2015
Optical/infrared long-baseline interferometry has reached a new stage with the advent of multi-telescope arrays accessible to a broad community of astronomers, most notably VLTI. In preparation for the second generation VLTI instruments, GRAVITY and MATISSE, the VLTI Summer School aims to train astronomers in the best possible exploitation of these instruments over a broad range of science topics.
The 2014 ESO Annual Report is now available, as full sized or small PDF. The Annual Report describes some science highlights of 2014 and provides a summary of last year's activities covering all aspects of the Organisation.
As the E-ELT and its instruments move into the construction phase, it is timely to re-examine the science cases in detail and to turn to the training of the astronomers who will use these facilities. The "F. Lucchin" International PhD School STEEL will provide a comprehensive training in both the science and the technologies used to deliver astronomical results with the range of E-ELT instruments. The school is open to postgraduate and masters students and early career postdoc researchers, with space for around 80-100 participants.
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 6th European Radio Interferometry School (ERIS), sponsored by the European Union, RadioNet3 and ESO is sponsoring a 5-day school of lectures and tutorials focussed on obtaining scientific results from radio interferometry at metre to sub-mm wavelengths. Topics include: fundamentals of radio interferometry; calibration; deconvolution and self-calibration; and information extraction from data cubes. The techniques are applicable to low-frequency, cm-wave, mm-wave and VLBI. The School is primarily intended for graduate students and beginning post-docs, but more senior researchers interested in learning about the techniques are also welcome to attend. Full details can be found here, but capacity has been reached.
The workshop will consider the science from current and upcoming multi-object spectroscopy (MOS) facilities, with a focus on the important cases already limited by sensitivity and spatial resolution. The scientific topics that demand future MOS capabilities on ELTs will be reviewed. The workshop will be organized in sessions on science themes from planetary systems and stellar populations to the earliest phases of galaxy formation. There will be a special session dedicated to critical analysis of the ELT MOS facilities required in the post-JWST era to assess their complementarity and competitiveness. More details can be found on the website.
ESO Public Surveys have increased in size and number and now vastly increase the volume of public data delivered. Also about 15% of VLT science time has been allocated to Large Programmes. This workshop will focus on the scientific results achieved and the potential for enhanced exploitation of the archival data from these programmes. Presentations from all the Public Surveys and a representative set of the Large Programmes completed since the last Large Programme workshop in 2008 will be scheduled. Full details can be found on the workshop website. The abstract submission deadline is 30 June 2015 and registration deadline 7 September 2015.
The objective of this workshop is to prepare that part of the community interested in Solar System research for making the best use of the Extremely Large Telescopes (ELTs). In complement to many successful space planetary missions, ground-based observations are still essential for understanding the physico-chemical properties of Solar System, A second objective will be to review the specific constraints raised by Solar System observations with the E-ELT. More details can be found on the workshop webpage. The abstract deadline is 01 June 2015 and registration deadline 31 October 2015.
