Overview

The expected Paranal Instrumentation and Facilities to be offered in Period 110 and changes foreseen for Periods 111 and 112 are presented at the overview page.

General

• Further improvements of the new Phase 1 system (p1) will take place in Period 110 and following.
  

UT instruments and facilities

• MOONS - the Multi-Object Optical and Near-infrared Spectrograph – is expected to be installed at the UT1 Nasmyth A focus during the third quarter of 2023.
• The VLT Visitor Focus at UT1 will be available, but the installation of the field corrector lens for MOONS may pose restrictions.
• ERIS, the Enhanced Resolution Imager and Spectrograph, is expected to be installed and commissioned during the first quarter of 2022 at the UT4 Cassegrain focus, if the conditions for international travel are favourable. Pending successful commissioning, ERIS might be offered in Period 111.
  
• With the availability of superior VLT capabilities, the IFU mode of XSHOOTER is expected to be decommissioned towards the end of Period 110 or during Period 111.
  
• For VISIR, the L-band filter might be commissioned in P108.
  
• Provided successful commissioning, MATISSE may be offered with the GRA4MAT fringe tracker for chopping on UTs starting in Period 110. In addition, the HIGH+ resolution set-up is expected to be offered for Monitoring Programs starting in Period 110.
  
• From 2022 Q4, the recoating of the UT+VLTI coude train will continue with M5s and M7s. This activity will be performed one UT at a time, each time implying a two-month unavailability for VLTI+UT operations.
  

Survey telescopes and instruments

• Due to the installation of 4MOST, Period 109 is expected to be the last period of operations of VIRCAM.