ESO-Enews #3: March 2007

In this issue:

1. CALL FOR PROPOSALS FOR P80

The Call for Proposals for observations at the ESO telescopes during Period 80 (October 1, 2007 - March 31, 2008) has been released. Period 80 features the introduction of a new type of proposals for Short Programmes, i.e. programmes requiring a total amount of observing time smaller than or equal to 10 hours. Proposals for Short Programmes are invited for Paranal and for Chajnantor. In Period 80, VLTI users will have the option to use the FINITO fringe-tracking system on the Auxiliary Telescopes. On La Silla, the 2.2m telescope is offered only for Chilean Programme proposals.

Deadline for proposal submission is 30 March 2007, 12:00 noon CEST.

The full Call for Proposals and the ESOFORM electronic submission package can be obtained at http://www.eso.org/observing/proposals/index.html.

In order to avoid last-minute problems, users are strongly encouraged to fully verify their proposal well ahead of its actual submission, using a preliminary version including all necessary, fixed-format technical information, but possibly incomplete or non-final text descriptions (see ESOFORM manual for details).

2. ESO WORKSHOPS

Upcoming workshops organised by ESO can be found at http://www.eso.org/gen-fac/meetings. This site lists all future workshops as the information becomes available.

Four workshops are planned for this year:

"Obscured AGN Across Cosmic Time" will take place at Seeon between 5 and 7 June. For more information see http://www.eso.org/gen-fac/meetings/agnii2007/
"12 Questions on Star and Massive Star Cluster Formation" combines the fields of star formation and the formation of massive young clusters. The workshop will be 3 to 6 July in Garching. Details are available at http://www.eso.org/gen-fac/meetings/star07/
"Science with the VLT in the ELT era" will discuss future use and instrumentation of the VLT (Garching, 8-12 October). The workshop will be the basis for the decision of what further instruments should be envisaged for the VLT. The registration deadline is 1 June (see http://www.eso.org/gen-fac/meetings/vlt07/).
"Gas Accretion and Star Formation in Galaxies" is the MPA/ESO/MPE/USM Joint Astronomy Conference this year. It will be held in Garching on 10-14 September with a registration deadline of 15 May. Details can be found at http://www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/~gassf07/

3. NEON SCHOOL 2007

Asiago Observatory is hosting the Sixth Neon Observing School from 4 to 18 September this year. This school will introduce students into observing and data reductions. The registration deadline is 15 April. More information is available at http://www.astro.unipd.it/Neon07/Neon07.html

4. EURO-VO PROPOSALS

The EURO-VO project is soliciting proposals from teams aiming at carrying out astronomical projects driven by the Virtual Observatory concept, and making use of the Virtual Observatory tools and applications. The successful groups will receive support from EURO-VO astronomers to complete their projects by December 2007. For more details please see http://www.euro-vo.org/pub/fc/call.html

5. NEW MESSENGER EDITOR

On the retirement of Peter Shaver, the editorship of the ESO Messenger has been taken over by Jeremy Walsh. The ESO Messenger contains news about ESO, updates on telescope and instrument activities, astronomical science using ESO facilities and astronomical news, such as conference announcements and reports, etc. Other topical matter is also considered and, for example, the next issue will contain an article on the climate at the ALMA site. Suggestions for contributions are very welcome and can be made to the editor (jwalsh@eso.org). Guidelines for contributors to the ESO Messenger can be found at http://www.eso.org/gen-fac/pubs/messenger/mes-guide.html