ESO Period 103 Proposal Submission Statistics

Published: 08 Oct 2018
The VLT at sunset

The deadline for proposal submission for Period 103 (1 April 2019 - 30 September 2019) was 27 September, 2018. 914 valid proposals were submitted, including 20 Large Programmes, of which one is a GTO Large Programme. The number of proposals for Period 103 is very similar to that of Periods 91 (893), 92 (892), 93 (898), 94 (901), 98 (901), 99 (887), 100 (895), 101 (899) and 102 (916) so the plateau observed since peaks in Periods 95 (934), 96 (960) and 97 (1024) remains. On the VLT the most requested ESO instrument was X-shooter with 258 nights, followed by MUSE with 226 nights, and FORS2 with 145 nights. HARPS on the ESO 3.6-metre was the most demanded instrument at La Silla, with a request of 190 nights, though the combined request on the NTT was larger (246 nights).

In Paranal, the telescope with the highest oversubscription is UT2-Kueyen, with a total request of 506 nights, followed by UT4-Yepun (322 nights), UT1-Antu (259 nights) and UT3-Melipal (128 nights). Following the steady trend observed during the last semesters, the request for Service Mode still exceeds 80%.

The percentages of submitted proposals across science categories were:

  • Cosmology and Intergalactic Medium 17.1%
  • Galaxies 20.8%
  • ISM, Star Formation & Planetary Systems 32.1%
  • Stellar Evolution 29.9%.

Proposals will be reviewed by the Observing Programmes Committee, which meets in November. Proposers will be informed of the outcome of the review process by the end of the year.