The 106th Observing Programmes Committee (OPC) met online on 29-30 June 2020. Based on the committee's recommendations to the ESO Director General, a total of 2688 (8-hour equivalent) nights of Visitor Mode and Service Mode observations were allocated on the VLT/VLTI, VISTA, VST, the 3.6-metre, and NTT, and APEX telescopes. The submission deadline for Phase 2 Service Mode observations is 3 September 2020; see the separate announcement for further details.
Period 106 Telescope Allocation
Published: 04 Aug 2020
On the VLT, the balance between Visitor and Service Mode in Period 106 was about 16/84, excluding filler programmes. Ongoing and new Large Programmes on the VLT take up about 16% of the allocation. The commitment to ongoing and new Large Programmes on the ESO 3.6-metre telescope and the NTT is 54% and 42% respectively.
The closure of the telescopes in Period 105 produced a substantial backlog of observations (in particular for Large Programmes) and critical technical activities. With the addition of a record time request in Period 106, this resulted in exceptionally high oversubscription rates.
The outcome of the time allocation was communicated to the Principal Investigators of proposals submitted for Period 106 on Monday 3 August, 2020.