In this issue:

1. THE NEW ESO WEB SITE
2. ALMA COMMUNITY MEETING AND SURVEYS FOR ALMA
3. ESO USER SUPPORT
4. AVAILABILITY OF VLT INSTRUMENT PIPELINE

1. THE NEW ESO WEB SITE

The new ESO Web site has been launched yesterday. Following other organisations, such as CERN, ESO has adapted its website to the fact that the large majority of web users are from the public domain.

Other objectives for making a new ESO web include:

• Improve the appearance, i.e. give the ESO Web a more modern Look and Feel;
• Improve the navigation and provide more functionality;
• Improve page content, in particular making sure that the content is up-to-date. Remove old and outdated pages and information.

The new ESO Web has two major user areas:

1. Public: This area is intended for the general public, press and media, (potential) industrial partners and people interested in working at ESO. The area is completely new, partially based on existing information, but also with new content. The new Look and Feel has been implemented throughout the whole Public area. Pages in the old Web have been converted to the new style. The new ESO web is available via the well known ESO URL: http://www.eso.org/
2. Science Users: The area is intended for professional astronomers who are doing or are planning to do research using ESO facilities. Upper level pages in the Science area have the new Look and Feel. The lower level information is coming from the "old" web and therefore still has the old Look and Feel. The direct link to this area is http://www.eso.org/sci/

Comments and suggestions are welcome. For support regarding broken links, bookmarks or incorrectly displayed pages please contact the ESO Web editorial office (editorial-office@eso.org).

2. ALMA COMMUNITY MEETING AND SURVEYS FOR ALMA (6-9 September)

The aim of this meeting is to keep the European astronomical community informed about ALMA progress since the last ALMA Community Day in September 2004. The meeting will provide information about the project status, and additional reports on other ALMA activities.

While ALMA is being constructed in Chile, several ground-based millimetre and submillimetre observatories worldwide are being upgraded and are now coming on-line. The excellent wide-field survey capabilities of large bolometer arrays such as LABOCA and SCUBA-2 on single dish sub-millimetre telescopes such as APEX and the JCMT, and the upgraded (sub-)millimetre arrays such as IRAM allow prospective ALMA users to develop ambitious science projects and get ready for the use of ALMA. During the first years of operation of ALMA, the Herschel Space Observatory and the Planck mission will also be operational, and provide unprecedented far-infrared survey capabilities.

More information on these back-to-back meetings is available.

3. ESO USER SUPPORT

In regard to contacting ESO with questions concerning facilities and observing, during a recent discussion at the ESO Users Committee it emerged that not all astronomers are correctly informed on how to contact ESO regarding observing tools and procedures, tracking of service mode observations or archive use. The email address usd-help@eso.org is the entry point for all questions on these matters.

4. AVAILABILITY OF VLT INSTRUMENT PIPELINES

ESO provides in collaboration with the various instrument consortia data reduction pipelines for the most commonly used VLT/VLTI instrument modes. These pipelines can be retrieved at http://www.eso.org/pipelines A description of the pipeline status and the VLT calibration plans is available at http://www.eso.org/observing/dfo/quality/pipeline-status.html