The 102^nd Observing Programmes Committee (OPC) met on 22-24 May 2018. A total of 1174 (8-hour equivalent) nights of Visitor Mode and Service Mode observations were allocated on the VLT/VLTI, VISTA, VST, the 3.6-metre and NTT, and APEX telescopes. The submission deadline for Phase 2 Service Mode observations is 2 August 2018; see the separate announcement for further details.

With the release of the telescope schedule, the preparation of Service Mode (SM) observations (Phase 2) starts. The deadline for the submission of the Phase 2 material for Period 102 observations is 2 August 2018.

The archive of the La Silla Paranal Observatory (LPO) is a powerful scientific resource for the ESO astronomical community. We are delighted to announce new capabilities and user services to enhance data discovery and usage in the face of the increasing volume and complexity of the archive holdings:

• The ESO Archive Science Portal: New web-based access enables browsing and exploration of the archive with interactive, iterative queries. The results are presented in real time in various tabular and/or graphic forms, including interactive previews, allowing an evaluation of the usefulness of the data which can then be selected for retrieval.
  
• Direct database and Virtual Observatory access: The inherent limitation in the intuitive way that the web interface enables archive content to be discovered is that it is unsuited to more complex queries, such as those that include sequences with logical statements like “and”, “or” and “not”, or queries that join different sources of information. This restriction can be overcome through direct access to the ESO database tables. Extensive documentation is provided in terms of practical examples, which are intended to provide templates for users to customise and adapt to their specific needs.

Science workshops are an essential component of ESO's programmes and represent a unique opportunity to promote and foster ideas and collaborations within the scientific community. Every year, through the Directorate for Science, ESO provides support and funding to organise two workshops in Santiago and four in Garching, as well as co-funding some external workshops (see ESO Workshops calendar). In 2019, eight conferences have been selected with four being held at ESO Garching, two at ESO Vitacura, and two elsewhere (in Europe and Australia). ESO would like to sincerely thank all workshop proposers for the time and effort they invested in preparing their proposals and for their participation in the call, which resulted in a pressure factor of above three.

Higgs Centre for Innovation, Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, UK, 10–13 September 2018

The Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA) is the most sensitive millimeter/submillimeter-wave observatory spanning 84–950 GHz, and will soon be extended to down to 35 GHz through Bands 1 and 2. However, ALMA's small field of view limits its mapping speed, and the size of the array elements restricts its ability to recover extended scales. In January 2018, a meeting was held to discuss a possible large, 40-metre-class single dish called the Atacama Large Aperture Sub-mm/mm Telescope (AtLAST). A new workshop has been organised to specifically address the many AtLAST science cases, and white papers covering the science, site selection, telescope design, and instrumentation will follow by the beginning of 2019. To get involved in this community effort, please register via the AtLAST wiki.