Rainbows on the Southern Sky: science and legacy value of the ESO Public Surveys and Large Programmes

ESO Garching, 05-09 October, 2015


Since the start of the VLT science operations, about fifteen per cent of the whole science time on La Silla Paranal telescopes has been used for Large Programmes. In the last five years, the Public Surveys on VISTA, VST, VLT and NTT, have beed added to the ESO landscape thus enlarging the offer of large/coherent observing programmes for the community and increasing the legacy value of the data delivered by the ESO telescopes.

In 2003 and 2008, ESO organised two workshops to assess the scientific return of Large Programmes; in 2012 the first results from the imaging ESO Public Surveys were also presented to the community. Following the recommendations from the Observing Programmes Committee and Public Survey Panels, ESO now wishes to discuss and put into perspective the scientific results achieved through these programmes together with their teams, the community and representatives of the reviewing panels.

The scientific research carried out by members of the community at the Observatory via these Programmes covers all the subjects of observational astronomy. This is celebrated by the diversified scientific program of the workshop organised in six sections: Stars and Planets, Milky Way and Local Group, Extragalactic Astronomy, Galaxy Evolution, High-redshift Universe and Cosmology, Legacy Value of Public Surveys and Large Programmes.

The workshop will feature the scientific presentations from all Public Surveys and a representative set of Large Programmes that were completed since the 2008 Large Programme workshop. The astronomers in charge of these Programmes will be invited to present their scientific results and the impact on their field of research. The workshop will include a session on the impact of these ESO programmes and on the developments required to increase the community access to the reduced data. The goal is to enhance their legacy value for the whole astronomical community.

Conference email: Rainbows2015@eso.org

Important dates and News:

  • First announcement on 10.04.2015
  • Registration opens on 10.04.2015
  • Click here to see the conference's picture
ESO Rainbows Workshop Poster