Welcome to the homepage of the ESO User Support Department

The User Support Department (USD) of the ESO Data Management and Operations Division is based in Garching bei München, Germany. Its main activities consist in providing support to users of ESO facilities, in particular through the ESO Data Flow System:

  • Support for Phase I proposal preparation, mainly concerning technical questions on instruments, strategies, etc. at the time of writing observing proposals;
  • Support, review and optimization during the preparation of Phase II material. The purpose is to ensure that the material submitted by the users for the execution of their programmes is compliant with the principles of Service Mode observing and with the Service Mode guidelines, and that the observing strategy is both efficient and adequate for the scientific goals;
  • Maintenance of a Web-based Service Mode status information service, where users can obtain up-to-date information on the progress of their Service Mode programmes.
  • Operation of a helpdesk system (usd-help@eso.org) where users can address questions and request assistance on all aspects of ESO telescope Service Mode operations.

It also provides assistance to Science Operations Teams at ESO's observatories in the areas of:

  • Program mid-term scheduling and tracking services;
  • Providing a link between the observatory and the users when actions are needed during the execution of service mode programmes;
  • Interfacing between the observatory and the Data Flow Operations Department for data release.
  • On-site assistance for the execution of Service Mode programmes.

The User Support Department currently provides support for all the instruments available at the VLT and VLTI (Paranal), as well as for the surveys on VISTA. Users having obtained Visitor Mode time at the La Silla telescopes (NTT, 3.6m and 2.2 m telescope) should contact the La Silla Science Operations Group directly.


The User Support Department is headed by Francesca Primas. The USD Phase I and Phase II support for the VLT/VLTI and VISTA instruments, and the APEX telescope is distributed among the USD staff astronomers as follows:

  • AMBER: Markus Wittkowski, Christian Hummel, Monika Petr-Gotzens
  • APEX instruments: Carlos De Breuck
  • CRIRES: Michael Hilker, Mario van den Ancker
  • FLAMES: Claudio Melo, Ferdinando Patat, Thomas Dall, Gayandhi De Silva
  • FORS 2: Palle Møller, Bodo Ziegler
  • HAWK-I: Monika Petr-Gotzens, Bodo Ziegler
  • ISAAC: Monika Petr-Gotzens, Markus Wittkowski, Bodo Ziegler
  • MIDI: Christian Hummel, Markus Wittkowski
  • NACO: Lowell Tacconi-Garman, Claudio Melo
  • SINFONI: Vincenzo Mainieri, Mario van den Ancker
  • UVES: Ferdinando Patat, Thomas Dall, Claudio Melo, Gayandhi De Silva
  • VIMOS: Marina Rejkuba, Michael Hilker, Vincenzo Mainieri
  • VIRCAM: Marina Rejkuba, Michael Hilker
  • VISIR: Mario van den Ancker, Christian Hummel
  • X-SHOOTER: Ferdinando Patat

The USD operations support scientists, Stéphane Marteau, Sangeeta Mysore and Petra Nass, are responsible for a variety of operations tasks, including maintaining the Service Mode run status pages, managing the USD helpdesk (usd-help@eso.org), maintaining the external report and verification modules of Phase II preparation tool (P2PP), and preparing the distribution packages of P2PP and other observation preparation tools. Angelika Beller is taking care of travel arrangements for visiting astronomers.

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