SINFONI was dismounted from UT4 on 20 December 2015 and upgraded during January 2016. The upgrade included a new pre-optics collimator, new J, H and K filters, a new baffle at the entrance focal plane, and new collimator mirrors. In addition, the membrane mirror of the MACAO adaptive optics system was replaced. SINFONI re-commenced routine observations at the end of January 2016.

An important milestone for VLTI, first fringes using the four VLT Unit Telescopes (UTs) equipped with the Star Separator (STS) systems, was achieved on 10–11 February 2016. This is the configuration to be offered for Observing Period 97 (from 1 April 2016). The tests are an important step towards operating GRAVITY with four UTs, necessary for micro-arcsecond astrometry observations of the Galactic Centre.

The ESO Director General proposes to dedicate up to 60 nights of Director's Discretionary Time in four forthcoming observing periods to a Public Deep Field using MUSE. This project will be carried out towards the end of 2017 with enhanced seeing capabilities provided by GALACSI – the wide-field Ground Layer Adaptive Optics (GLAO) unit of the quad-laser Adaptive Optics Facility (AOF) on VLT UT4.

A new Band 9 receiver was installed inside the Swedish ESO PI receiver for Apex (SEPIA) at APEX in early February. This receiver, built by NOVA, is a copy of the ALMA Band 9 receiver, and covers frequencies from 600 to 722 GHz. After on-sky commissioning in late March, Science Verification (SV) observations are planned. Ideas for SV, which will allow testing of a large variety of observing modes for this new receiver, are encouraged. The Call for Proposals for SEPIA Band 9 SV can be found here and the deadline is 12:00 CET, Friday 11 March 2016.

ESA has recently issued an announcement of opportunity for new science ideas in the Science Programme. The ESA Director of Science solicits from the broad scientific community proposals for the competitive selection of new "Science Ideas", to be investigated in terms of feasibility and needed technology developments. Full details can be found here. The deadline for submission of letters of intent is 9 May 2016 12:00 CEST.
Since last year, ESO and ESA have agreed closer co-ordination (see the ESO public announcement).

Joint ESO, MPA, MPE, LMU, TUM and Excellence Cluster Universe Conference
ESO Headquarters, Garching, Germany, 11 – 15 July 2016

The aim of this conference is to explore the importance of stellar and gaseous discs in a variety of galaxies from high redshift to the Milky Way within the context of new observations and numerical simulations. Stellar and gaseous discs represent the most important structural component in normal galaxies and interpreting their early formation and destruction, via observations and numerical simulations, indicates the key processes that shape the eventual Hubble sequence.

The APEX Telescope Large Area Survey of the Galaxy (ATLASGAL) is an imaging survey covering 420 square degrees of the inner Galactic Plane at a wavelength of 870μm.The current release consists of emission maps covering the full area surveyed, available as 9 square degree tiles.

zCOSMOS (PI Simon Lilly, ESO Large Programme 175.A-0839) is a large redshift survey undertaken in the COSMOS field using the VIMOS spectrograph. About 600 hours were awarded to this Large Programme, which was executed between 2005 and 2010. This final release of zCOSMOS-bright includes 20689 1-d spectra.

A call for Science Verification (SV) of the upgraded VISIR was issued on 16 November 2015 (announcement) with a proposal deadline of 15 December 2015. The following modes were offered: Sparse Aperture Masking (SAM), coronography and burst readout mode. A total of 35 SV proposals, requesting in total about 62 hours, were received, with proposed observations covering a range of scientific topics.

Following the prioritisation of the ESO science programme for the 2020s (Report in PDF) and the envisaged importance of highly-multiplexed spectroscopy for numerous scientific applications in the future, the ESO Director for Science, Rob Ivison, has established a Working Group to investigate the scientific case, synergistic opportunities and practical requirements for a dedicated ground-based wide field spectroscopic survey telescope in the 2020s. The Working Group is soliciting input from the community.