The ESPRESSO 4-UT mode is a new capability offered at the VLT. The commissioning of this instrument mode is nearing completion, and an integral part of this process is Science Verification (SV). SV programmes include a set of typical scientific observations that should verify and demonstrate to the community the capabilities of the new instrument in the operational framework of the VLT Observatory. ESO encourages the community to submit highly challenging or risky science observations that will push ESPRESSO in 4-UT mode to its limits in order to better understand the performance parameter space and its constraints.

The Offices for Science and the Astronomy Faculty are very pleased to present the 2019 ESO Fellows. Here is an introduction to the Fellows due to start in Garching, Germany later this year.

The Offices for Science and the Astronomy Faculty are very pleased to present the 2019 ESO Fellows. Here is an introduction to the Fellows due to start in Chile later this year.

The ESO Annual Report 2018 is now available. It presents a summary of ESO’s activities throughout the year, outlining progress on the design, construction and operation of ground-based astronomical facilities, as well as various initiatives to promote and organise astronomical research.

The ESO Public Survey ATLAS with VST (ESO programme ID: 177.A-3011; PI: Tom Shanks) is targeting 4700 square degrees of the southern sky in u,g,r,i and z bands to depths comparable to those of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey SDSS (r ~ 22). Its wide wavelength coverage, from the u to z band, complements the VISTA, VHS and VIKING Surveys in YJHK bands. This fourth data release (DR4) provides new stacked reduced images and associated source lists for the period Oct 2014 to July 2017 and reprocessed stacked reduced images, associated source lists and the band-merged catalogue from the beginning of observations in August 2011 to July 2017. DR4 data contain a global photometric calibration based on Gaia. The basic data reduction of the VST imaging was carried out at the Cambridge Astronomical Surveys Unit (CASU), while the band-merged catalogue was produced by the Wide Field Astronomy Unit (WFAU) at Edinburgh.