ESO Headquarters, Garching, Germany, 7–9 September 2020 

If you are a La Silla Paranal Observatory user and are interested in face-to-face contact with ESO experts working on various support services, this workshop is for you! The workshop will provide you with all the necessary knowledge to make the most out of ESO data and thereby strengthen your science. It will also give you the possibility to directly interact with ESO staff to answer questions you may have on any aspect of the La Silla and Paranal data workflows, from improving the technical side of your proposals to preparing your observations, reducing data, and/or using the ESO archive. The workshop will also provide timely preparation ahead of the Call for Proposals for Period 107. Further details are available on the workshop website.

ESO Headquarters, Garching, Germany, 14–18 September 2020 

The detection in 2017 of electromagnetic light from a pair of merging neutron stars first identified in gravitational waves ushered in a new era for astronomy. This multi-messenger era is rapidly becoming established with the identification of gravitational wave sources and astrophysical neutrinos occurring at ever-increasing rates, although joint electromagnetic detection remains challenging. This meeting will seek to review the recent dramatic progress in this field, evaluating the science from the current LIGO/VIRGO O3 run that will complete before the workshop. It will also look to what future ESO (E-ELT, next-generation VLT instruments) and ESA (ATHENA, LISA, THESEUS) projects contribute to this nascent field. 

ESO Headquarters, Garching, Germany, 23–27 November 2020 

The formation of bulges is still one of the most debated problems of galaxy evolution. Understanding their formation and evolution, and their interplay with other galaxy structural components provides crucial information on the formation history of galaxies at large. So far, the problem of bulge formation has been addressed following three main strategies, by looking at:  (i) high redshifts, when such structures are still forming; (ii) the local Universe, where a variety of bulges with different properties can be observed; and (iii) the Milky Way, which offers the unique opportunity to study in detail the closest bulge and the properties of its resolved stellar populations. In parallel, extensive theoretical work has been carried out with hydrodynamic simulations of isolated galaxies, idealised mergers, and galaxy formation in the cosmological context, providing a framework for interpreting these observations. Although very different in terms of techniques and diagnostics, these fields of research are very much complementary in the broad framework of the formation and evolution of the central regions of galaxies.

The VISTA EXtension to Auxiliary Surveys (VEXAS) project aims at providing photometric catalogues with the most uniform spatial coverage, in the multi-wavelength sky for various scientific uses such as object classification (e.g., quasars, galaxies, and stars; high-z galaxies, white dwarfs), photometric redshifts of large galaxy samples and identification of exotic objects (e.g., extremely red objects and lensed quasars). This first data release covers the Southern Galactic Hemisphere (SGH) and objects below the Galactic plane, b < -20 degrees.

The ADHOC programme (096.C-0730(A) and 097.C-0749(A), PI G. Beccari) is equivalent to an OmegaCAM mini-survey targeting circumstellar discs in nearby Galactic star-forming regions. The scientific goal of this mini-survey is the study of the star formation history of several star-forming regions using deep, wide field, multi-band observations in the optical filters u, g, r, i and H alpha, with a depth reaching 21 AB magnitudes in r. A total of 8 star-forming regions in the Galaxy were observed.

ESO's Science Prioritisation Working Group is tasked with reviewing the ESO programme from a scientific perspective. This working group is composed of members of the Scientific Technical committee (STC), the Users Committee (UC) and ESO staff. The working group has devised a survey to better understand the priorities of the ESO community for the upcoming decade. Invitations to answer the survey have been emailed to astronomers registered on the ESO User Portal and/or on the ALMA Science Portal. If you have received a personal invitation, use the provided link with your unique token. In case you have not received an invitation, or you wish to share the poll with unregistered colleagues, please use this registration link.

Following the recommendation of the Time Allocation Working Group and to support the rehaul of the whole proposal handling system, ESO is now requesting all science users provide more detailed information in their User Portal profile.  This is to enable further and more accurate statistical studies on time allocation systematics, to improve the optimisation of proposal distribution in the current system (for example, to support Distributed Peer Review, and enable more complete bibliometric analyses).

MATISSE is the newly commissioned mid-infrared 4-telescope beam combiner for the Very Large Telescope Interferometer. ESO will offer MATISSE with fringe tracking for Science Verification (SV) on four AT nights. While MATISSE has already been offered since Period 103 (starting 1 April 2019), this SV call aims to demonstrate the new capabilities enabled by using GRAVITY as a fringe tracker for MATISSE: updated sensitivity limits and extend spectral coverage.

If you are visiting ESO sites and you like to capture your experience on camera, the Department of Communication invites you to share your photos with the world. There are a number of ways in which we can help you to do this, and if photography is your secret — or not so secret — superpower (after astronomy), we might invite you to join our network of Photo Ambassadors.

Exeter, UK, 20–24 April 2020 

The University of Exeter (UK) is hosting The Sharpest Eyes on the Sky: A 2020 vision for high-angular resolution astronomy, a conference focussing on the latest science results from optical interferometers and other very high angular resolution techniques. The meeting will be held in the tradition of the past CHARA meetings and VLTI community days, bringing both communities together for the first time. There will be time for discussions regarding the recent and future technological development of CHARA and VLTI, including how to best exploit these advancements in synergy with other facilities and instruments. Abstract submission will close on 6 March 2020.