News and Updates

Public release: Mosaicking M33 with MUSE

Published: 03 Jun 2026

This is the public release of VLT/MUSE integral field spectroscopy observations of a 3'x8' mosaic along the southern major axis of the Local Group spiral galaxy M33, obtained under ESO Programme 109.22XS.001 (PI: G. Cresci). The observations were carried out in seeing-limited wide-field mode (WFM), covering the nominal wavelength range 4750 and 9350 Å .

The final mosaic comprises 24 pointings, corresponding to a total sky coverage of ~24 arcmin² (~1.43 kpc² at the distance of M33), with a spatial sampling of 0.2″ per pixel (≈0.8 pc physical scale). The released product include a fully reduced and flux-calibrated datacube and the emission-line maps published as an ancillary file (category: ANCILLARY.IMAGE).

This release enables spatially resolved studies of ionised gas and stellar feedback at parsec scales in a nearby spiral galaxy.

The dataset has been used to identify and characterise 131 H II regions within the mosaic footprint through dendrogram analysis. The data product and the associated nebular catalogue (published at CDS), including integrated emission-line fluxes and derived physical properties, are presented in Feltre et al. (A&A, 706, A367, 2026).

Users can query and download the data via the ESO Archive Science Portal or through programmatic access.

New data release of GRB180728A_SN2018fip

Published: 24 Apr 2026

A new spectroscopic dataset of the gamma-ray burst (GRB) 180728A and its associated supernova SN 2018fip is now publicly available through the ESO Science Archive Facility.

Third Release of VST-OMEGACAM Imaging Products from the Collaboration with INAF

Published: 23 Apr 2026

The VLT Survey Telescope (VST) at Paranal is now owned and operated by INAF, which is responsible for processing the data and releasing them via the ESO Archive.

SPHERE data now available for P95 to P109 (April 2015 - September 2022)

Published: 20 Mar 2026

The second release of SPHER E (Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch instrument) data processed by the High-Contrast Data Centre (HC-DC) is now available in the ESO Science Archive Facility. SPHERE is designed for high-contrast imaging, low-resolution spectroscopy, and polarimetric characterisation of extrasolar planetary systems. This release provides reduced IRDIS imaging data acquired between ESO Periods P95 and P109 (April 2015 – September 2022), including SPHERE consortium Guaranteed Time Observations.

The collection consists of 3,267 individual science images, of which 2,667 are newly released and 600 correspond to data previously included in the initial release, now available with improved target identification and contrast assessment keywords. The IRDIS instrument provides classical imaging (CI), dual-band imaging (DBI), and dual-polarimetric imaging (DPI) between 0.95 and 2.3 µm; polarimetric reductions are not included in the current data products.

Users can query and download the data via the ES O Archive Science Portal or through programmatic access.

Second and final data release from the Large Programme SUPER

Published: 03 Feb 2026

We are pleased to announce the second and final Phase3 data release of the Large Programme SUPER - SINFONI Survey for Unveiling the Physics and the Effect of Radiative feedback, programme id 196.A-0377, PI V. Mainieri. It uses SINFONI in Seeing-Enhancer mode to study Active Galactic Nuclei at z=2-2.5. The AO assisted observations reach a PSF of 0.2 arcsec in K-band.

First Release of LEWIS: MUSE Integral-Field Spectroscopic Survey of Ultra-Diffuse Galaxies in the Hydra I Cluster

Published: 13 Jan 2026

This data release presents the first public data products (DR1) from Looking into the faintEst WIth MUSE (LEWIS), an ESO Large Programme investigating extreme low-surface-brightness galaxies in the Hydra I cluster using the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) on the ESO Very Large Telescope. The observations were obtained in service mode between December 2021 and March 2025 under ESO programme 108.222P, PI E. Iodice.

The release includes six fully reduced and flux-calibrated MUSE datacubes and associated white-light images for five ultra-diffuse galaxies in the LEWIS sample. The data cover the wavelength range 4000–9000 Å and were processed using an optimized data-reduction strategy tailored to extremely faint, extended sources, ensuring high-quality sky subtraction and flux calibration. These data products enable spatially resolved studies of stellar kinematics, stellar populations, and globular cluster systems in ultra-diffuse galaxies in a dense cluster environment. The DR1 dataset forms the basis of the first published scientific results of the LEWIS project, with additional data releases planned to include the remaining targets of the survey.

Users can query and download the data via the ESO Archive Science Portal or through programmatic access.

Final data release of the VISTA survey of the Magellanic Cloud system (VMC)

Published: 19 Dec 2025

The ESO Public Survey project VMC, ESO program 179.B-2003, PI M. R. Cioni, targets the Magellanic Cloud system in three filters: Y, J and Ks. The main goals are the determination of the spatially resolved star formation history and study the three-dimensional geometry of the system. The sensitivity of the data is designed to reach sources below the oldest main-sequence turn off point of the stellar population and the multi-epochs to measure accurate Ks mean magnitudes for pulsating variable stars, e.g. RR Lyrae stars and Cepheids.

This last data release is based on the complete observations for the VMC survey and data from twelve additional programmes, which add multi-epoch observations to the VMC footprint. There are 68 VISTA tiles encompassing the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), 28 over the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), 13 across the Bridge and 2 on the Stream. Observations were acquired between October 2009 and January 2023.

This release provides reduced and calibrated tile images belonging to individual observations (‘single OBs’), in addition to the corresponding pawprints (6 per tile), deep co-added images, and source lists (separately for each filter). In addition, also deep co-added tile images and catalogues (separately for each filter), for both individual tiles and combined, as well as band-merged catalogues and catalogues with PSF magnitudes, are provided. This release supersedes all previous data releases of the VMC survey for the combined (deepstacked) data products, whilst providing additional (complementary) images and catalogues of single observations per filter. Overall, it includes about 64 million detections. The total sky coverage of this release is ~170 deg².

It contains 18 catalogues, one band-merged source catalogue, three multi-epoch catalogues, one per filter, one catalogue including the PSF magnitudes, one catalogue of variable sources, proper motion, two extinction catalogues and more containing quasars and background galaxies, Cepheids, RR Lyrae stars and also a Machine Leaning based classification. These catalogues can be queried conjointly via the catalog query interface or TAP.

Fifth and final data release of the VST-ATLAS Public Survey

Published: 27 Oct 2025

The data released in DR5 are the final VLT Survey Telescope (VST) ATLAS stacked images and associated source lists taken from observations by VST from October 2017 to the end of the survey in January 2021 under ESO program ID 177.A-3011. These new data mainly comprise the ATLAS NGC extension at Dec<-20 deg. DR5 presents new and updated CASU (Cambridge Astronomical Survey Unit) images and source lists and also a full re-release of multi-band catalogue data from the Wide Field Astronomy Unit (WFAU) at Edinburgh, representing the “best” data. Any other un-updated data is still available within DR4 and earlier releases. DR5 data also includes the final ATLAS global photometry calibration.

Release of Continuum, CO, and Water Vapour Maps of the Orion Nebula — First Millimetre Spectral Imaging with APEX/CONCERTO

Published: 16 Oct 2025

This data release presents the first millimetre spectroscopic imaging of the Orion Nebula obtained with the CONCERTO instrument on the APEX telescope. The observations were carried out on 24 August 2022 under ESO programme 0110.A-4194 (110.23NK; PI Désert) in excellent atmospheric conditions (pwv ≈ 0.4 mm). The dataset covers 0.5 deg² centred on the Orion Nebula (M42), spanning the frequency range 130–310 GHz (0.97–2.3 mm) at a typical angular resolution of 27″ and a spectral resolution of 6 GHz (sampled at 3 GHz).

Second Release of VST-OMEGACAM Imaging Products from the Collaboration with INAF

Published: 16 Oct 2025

The VLT Survey Telescope (VST) at Paranal is now owned and operated by INAF, which is responsible for processing the data and releasing them via the ESO Archive.

The imaging data included in the current DR2 were obtained using the wide-field camera OmegaCAM with the g, r, i, and z filters and belong to the following projects:

"Pre-supernova Outbursts in Galactic Red Supergiants: Predicting the Next Galactic SN Event" - GALRSG, P.I. F. Bocchino, PROG_ID: 113.26YN.001

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