KiDS is an ESO Public Survey carried out with the VLT Survey Telescope and OmegaCAM camera, that has imaged 1347 square degrees in four filters (u, g, r, i). Single epoch observations are provided in u,g,r. Multi-epoch imaging is provided in the i-band, with the two observations, denoted i1 and i2, typically separated by several years. KiDS was designed as a weak lensing tomography survey, with a core science driver to map and constrain the properties of the evolving large-scale matter distribution in the Universe. The median r-band 5σ limiting magnitude is 24.8 with median seeing 0.7”. Additional science cases are manifold, ranging from galaxy evolution to Milky Way structure, and from the detection of white dwarfs to high-redshift quasars.

The VLT Survey Telescope (VST) at Paranal is now owned and managed by INAF which processes the data and releases them via the ESO Archive. The imaging data included in this DR1 are obtained using the wide-field camera OmegaCAM in the filters: u, g, r, i, z, H_α. They span a wide range of celestial objects, from distant galaxy clusters to nearby galaxies and star clusters.

Lunch session LS6 on "The ALMA 2030 Wideband Sensitivity Upgrade: status update" will take place on the 26th of June, during the European Astronomical Society (EAS) 2025 annual meeting in Cork (Ireland). The ALMA Wideband Sensitivity Upgrade (WSU for short) constitutes the top priority of the ALMA 2030 development roadmap.

In its efforts to promote the scientific exchange among astronomers, the Directorate for Science at ESO continues to provide support and funding for the organisation of scientific workshops in Santiago and in Garching as well as co-funding for some external workshops. Science workshops are an essential component of ESO's programmes and represent a unique opportunity to promote and foster ideas and collaborations within the scientific community.

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 data management facilities to the La Silla Paranal Observatory and ALMA. The annual meeting of the UC is scheduled on 28 and 29 April 2025. During the UC meeting updates from ESO and feedback from the user community are exchanged and openly discussed. Each year one topic is explored in more detail and this year the Special Topic session is dedicated to Quality Assurance and Data Quality.

The Call for Proposals for observations at ESO telescopes in Period 116 (1 October 2025 - 30 April 2026) has been released. Please consult the Period 116 document before applying for time on ESO telescopes. All technical information about the offered instruments and facilities can be found on the ESO webpages linked from the Call for Proposals. The proposal submission deadline is on 20 March 2025, 12:00 CEST.

ESO is pleased to announce the first ESO Science Writing School, which will take place on 4-8 August 2025, at the ESO headquarters in Garching, Germany.  

Are you a PhD student eager to dive into the cutting-edge scientific world at one of the most prestigious observatories on the planet? The ESO research studentship programme offers you a chance to do just that. This exceptional programme is open to students enrolled in a PhD programme in astronomy or related fields. You will continue your doctoral research under the formal supervision of your home university, but with the added benefit of spending a minimum of six months (Chile) or one year (Germany), and up to two years at ESO, working closely with a dedicated ESO staff astronomer.

The User Support Department again extends its sincere thanks to all those Principal Investigators and their Phase 2 delegates who participated in the 2024 online Paranal Service Mode User Satisfaction Survey. A total of 144 responses were received from the targeted campaign. As in the past, where possible, respondents who provided detailed comments have been contacted via e-mail. A summary report based on this latest User Satisfaction Survey is now available.

Thanks to a highly successful suite of instruments, the demand on usage of one of VLT Unit Telescope (UT4) has remained high in recent years. ESO has taken several actions to alleviate the situation, including the second generation deformable secondary mirror Phase A study. In parallel, a careful monitoring of operations at the telescope indicates that a large fraction of the telescope time observing with MUSE is spent with MUSE Wide Field Mode without Adaptive Optics, (NOAO). While the NOAO mode is essential for programmes gathering information over the 582-597 nm wavelength which is otherwise blocked by the Na Notch filter, the benefits of AO are many-fold. Not only the operations at the telescope are routine, but importantly seeing is improved in any observing conditions (bad seeing, light cirrus, high wind speed) while proven to be more stable during long exposure times.