ESO-Enews #11: January 2009

In this issue:

1. NEW PHASE 2 WEB PAGES RELEASED

On December 16th 2008, new web pages for the Phase II Observing Preparation went online. The User Support Department has updated the web pages to the new ESO style and given them a structural overhaul designed to make finding both general and instrument-specific information much easier. See http://www.eso.org/sci/observing/phase2/ and follow the link. The text has been split into Phase II-relevant sub-topics and shortened to keep the information concise and clear. As new features, an "Instrument selector" navigation menu, active (on the upper right) on pages where instrument-specific topics are present, and a "Phase II Instrument Overview Table" have been implemented. See http://www.eso.org/sci/observing/phase2/SMGuidelines.html.

2. ESO WORKSHOPS

The list of workshops organised by ESO can be found at http://www.eso.org/gen-fac/meetings/. The following are open:

Spectroscopic Survey Workshop

ESO Garching, 9 and 10 March, 2009

Following the recommendation of the ESO Scientific and Technical Committee (STC), ESO is organizing a workshop to discuss the scientific capabilities for large, high multiplex spectroscopic surveys with the upgraded FLAMES and VIMOS instruments between 2010 and 2015 and the science cases for the next generation of wide-field multi-object spectrographs on a longer time scale. The workshop will review ongoing and planned photometric and spectroscopic surveys worldwide with particular emphasis on the European scene, and will focus on the complementary efforts required to position Europe in a leading position and at the forefront of science with spectroscopic surveys.
More details may be found here. The registration deadline is 10 February 2009.

Beyond MAD: Science with Multi-conjugate Adaptive Optics

ESO Garching, Germany, 8-10 June, 2009

The success of MAD on the VLT opens a new era in imaging with large ground-based telescopes. MAD achieved unprecedented near diffraction-limited imaging over fields of view up to 2 arc-minutes with Strehl ratios over 30%. After a successful commissioning, MAD was offered to the general community in several Science Demonstration Runs. Currently there are about 10 publications in refereed journals and many other papers are being prepared. The workshop aims at bringing together scientists who have worked or are working on MAD data to compare results, data analysis techniques, and common problems, and also scientists and engineers involved in the development of the next generation of multi-conjugate adaptive optics instruments. More details here.

3. ESO DAY AT JENAM 2009

University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, UK, 21 April 2009
As part of the four day JENAM meeting (20-23 April 2009) which includes the Royal Astronomical Society National Astronomy Meeting (NAM) and the European Astronomical Society Joint meeting, there will be an ESO Day with three plenary talks and three sessions in parallel with other topics. The three ESO sessions will be devoted to Use of ESO facilities, ALMA and E-ELT. For more details see the meeting web page.

4. NEW E-ELT WEB PAGES

The E-ELT web pages have been overhauled and expanded and now include news and separate pages for Science, Telescope, Instrumentation, Site Project Organisation, Documentation and a Gallery.

5. LISTING OF SUCCESSFUL ESO OPC PROPOSALS

ESO does not publish a list of the successful proposals each Period, but the listing can be browsed or queried here. Thus entering '083' for the Period and '083*' for the Prog ID will result in a listing of the 595 proposals for ESO telescopes scheduled for April to September 2009. Selection by various criteria, such as a single telescope, observing mode, programme type or instrument is available.

6. ALMA FELLOWSHIPS

With ALMA becoming operational in a few years, ESO offers additional ALMA Fellowships - funded by the Marie-Curie COFUND Programme of the European Community - to complement its regular fellowship programme. Applications by young astronomers with expertise in mm/sub-mm astronomy are encouraged. The candidates may choose to work at one of the European Institutes hosting an ALMA Regional Centre node (Bologna, Bonn, Grenoble, Leiden, Manchester, Onsala) or to stay at ESO in Garching. The closing date for applications is 31 January 2009. For more information see: https://jobs.eso.org/ESOCP370.

7. NEW ESO ARCHIVE DATA RELEASES

New data releases since the last Enews are:
HAWK-I commissioning data on 30 Doradus
AMBER/FINITO/UT science verification
Advanced data products from the zCOSMOS DR2.
For more information about these data releases, or to subscribe to the archive RSS feed to stay informed on the latest archive developments, please see http://archive.eso.org/.

8. IMPORTANT NOTE ON EMAIL DISTRIBUTION

This Newsletter is distributed by email to a mailing list which was formed rather long ago and is very incomplete in terms of ESO users. In order to reach a much larger audience, it will in future be distributed to those with an ESO User Portal account. The next issue of the Newsletter (March 2009) will be sent to the current mailing list AND to all persons with an activated ESO User Portal account (using the e-mail address in their User Profile); subsequently the mailings will only be to ESO Portal users. So if you wish to continue receiving this Newsletter by email and do not have an active ESO User Portal account, please sign up for an account using this link.

The current ESO Electronic Newsletter and back issues are always available on the ESO Web pages here.

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