Celebrating ESO's achievements and perspectives from 10 years of Tim de Zeeuw as Director General ESO Headquarters, Garching, Germany, 28–30 August 2017
Planning is underway for a conference to mark the decade of Tim de Zeeuw as Director General on the occasion of his departure from ESO. The conference will feature mostly invited talks and will extend from Monday afternoon until Wednesday midday. Full details and registration information will be available soon on the conferences and workshops page. Please mark your calendar.
The Users Committee (UC) represents ESO's astronomical community at large and acts as an advisory body to the ESO Director General on matters related to the performance, scientific access, operation and user interfaces to the La Silla Paranal Observatory and ALMA. The annual meeting of the UC is scheduled at ESO Headquarters on 9–10 May 2017. In preparation for the upcoming meeting, the UC has designed a Poll which you are kindly invited to complete.
The ALMA Director, on behalf of the Joint ALMA Observatory (JAO) and the partner organizations in East Asia, Europe, and North America, is pleased to announce the ALMA Cycle 5 Call for Proposals (CfP) for scientific observations to be scheduled from October 2017 to September 2018. The deadline is 20 April 2017, 15:00 UT.
As announced in the Call for Proposals for Period 100, no science observations are foreseen with APEX from October 2017 to March 2018. This extended shutdown period is required to perform a number of major telescope maintenance activities, such as the replacement of the subreflector, the gearboxes and the shutter mechanism.
The Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch instrument (SPHERE) on VLT UT3 was commissioned in May – October 2014. Selected stellar targets were observed to demonstrate the capabilities of the instrument. The data are packaged by science targets with sets of matching calibration data and are available from the SPHERE commissioning page.
Following the call for ideas for selection of target field(s) for a Public MUSE Deep Field, six submissions were received. These were carefully assessed by a committee of community experts. Many of the proposals were felt to be scientifically interesting, but unfortunately none were judged to be urgent or compelling enough to warrant the very large allocation of up to 60 nights laid out in the call, especially in view of the huge oversubscription for MUSE. The campaign strategy as originally envisioned also carried risks, which only crystallised during the assessment process, most significantly due to lack of agreement with JWST and HST to undertake a joint public campaign.
The ESO Public SurveyATLAS with VST is targeting 4500 square degrees of the southern sky in u,g,r,i,z to depths comparable to those of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey SDSS. Its wide wavelength coverage, from the u- to z-band complements the VISTAVHS and VIKING Surveys in YJHK bands. This third release provides stacked reduced images, associated source lists and the band-merged catalogue from the beginning of observations in August 2011 to end September 2014.
The European Week of Astronomy and Space Science (EWASS) Special Session No. 20, will be devoted to the three modes of observing with ALMA that demonstrate its unique capabilities: High-Frequency Observations (specifically in Bands 8, 9 and 10); High-Angular-Resolution Observations with baselines up to 16 km; Solar Observations. Further details on the SS20 site.
Stars are mostly found in binary and multiple systems: at least 50% of all solar-like stars have companions and that fraction approaches 100% for the most massive stars. A large fraction of these systems will interact in some way and alter the structure and evolution of the components, leading to the production of exotic objects. This workshop will examine in detail the impact of binaries on stellar evolution from observational and theoretical viewpoints. Full details on the ImBaSE2017 webpage. The closing date for abstracts is 31 March 2017.
Proto-clusters, high redshift galaxy clusters, and merging clusters represent the initial stages in the formation of largest gravitationally-bound structures in the Universe. (Proto-)cluster assembly via mergers and accretion has a decisive impact on the subsequent cluster evolution, and is thus an important process to understand. The aim of GCF2017 is to discuss cluster formation over the last ten billion years, from its beginnings to the present day. This is truly a multi-wavelength topic and participants with expertise across the electromagnetic spectrum are encouraged. Further details can be found on the workshop webpage or by email. The closing date for abstract submission is 31 March 2017.
The fate of a galaxy is governed by an intricate ballet of gas flows: flow of cool gas into the system, conversion of baryons into stars and ejection of gas enriched with heavy elements. Determining what rules and mutually relates these three aspects still remains a critical and very complex problem in cosmology. The conference aims at addressing this core topic from many observational and theoretical viewpoints. Full details on the workshop webpage; the abstract deadline is 15 March 2017.
A range of planned ground- and space-based facilities will gather an unprecedented amount of data in observational astrophysics and cosmology, allowing open problems to be tackled, some of which require new physics. The aim of the school is to prepare the next generation of astrophysicists for this exciting quest, in the context of current and forthcoming ESO facilities, in particular the ELT. The School will feature a range of lectures and hands-on tutorials. More information and application conditions on the School website or by email. Attendance is limited to 40 students, with deadline 31 March 2017.
