Overview

An overview of the expected Paranal Instrumentation and Facilities to be offered for Period 105 and changes foreseen in Periods 106 and 107 is available.

General

• Further improvements of the new Phase 1 system (p1) will take place in Period 106 and following.
  
• In Period 105, Visitor (and Service) mode observations in any VLT instrument of UT2 can be affected by Rapid Response Mode (RRM) observations, except if they are striclty time-critical; this scheme will be extended to all UTs in Period 106.
  

UT instruments and facilities

• MOONS - the Multi-Object Optical and Near-infrared Spectrograph - is expected to be installed at the UT1 Nasmyth A focus during the third quarter of 2021.
  
• Depending on successful commissioning during Periods 104 and 105, CRIRES may be offered in Period 106 following its upgrade into a cross-dispersed echelle spectrograph.
• ERIS is expected to be installed and commissioned during the second semester of 2020 at the UT4 Cassegrain focus.
• In P106, ESPRESSO will be offered with a high resolution mode employing a 4x2 binning. This mode will benefit low signal-to-noise observations.
  

VLTI instruments and facilites

• Depending on a successful commissioning, additional modes for MATISSE may be offered in Period 106.
• Provided successful commissioning during Period 104, the possibility to use GRAVITY as a fringe tracker for MATISSE (GRA4MAT) in foreseen to be offered in P106.
  

Survey telescopes and instruments

• Due the installation of 4MOST, Period 107 is expected to be the last period of operations of VIRCAM.
• Similarly, Period 107 is the last period for which the operation of VST and OmegaCAM is guaranteed under the current agreement between ESO and INAF.