Foreseen Changes regarding La Silla, Paranal and APEX Instrumentation and Facilities

La Silla

No foreseen changes.

Paranal

UT instruments and facilities

  • CRIRES:
    • The ThAr lamp may be replaced by a UNe lamp in the course of P92.
    • Subject to approval of a major upgrade project, the instrument may be taken out of operations for one year starting in the second semester of 2014.
  • XSHOOTER will probably undergo an intervention lasting 3 months in Period 93 or 94, during which the instrument will not be available for operations. The aim of the intervention is to fix the ADC systems.
  • VIMOS: A call for public spectroscopic surveys may be issued for VIMOS in the near future,if the instrument upgrade is successful and the observation backlog has been resolved.
  • SINFONI: the Pupil Tracking mode may be offered in P93.
  • It is expected that the 2nd generation instruments MUSE and SPHERE will undergo commissioning in P93.

Activities related to the installation of the Adaptive Optics Facility on UT4 (Yepun)

  • GRAAL, the adaptive optics module for HAWK-I, is expected to be installed on Nasmyth A early in Period 93.
  • The installation of the 4 Laser Guide Stars Facility (4LGSF) is expected to take place late in Period 93.
  • GALACSI, the adaptive optics module for MUSE, is expected to be installed on Nasmyth B early in Period 94.
  • The installation of the Deformable Secondary Mirror and re-commissioning of the telescope is expected to take place late in Period 94; as a consequence, UT4 will not be available during 2 months.

VLTI instruments and facilites

  • MIDI will likely be decommissioned during P93.
  • It is expected that the VLTI Visitor Instrument focus will not be available starting with P93.

APEX

  • Artemis : the installation of this PI instrument is foreseen in the first quarter of 2014. After succesful commissioning, it may be offered to the ESO community.
  • ZEUS-2: Pending successful commissioning, the redshift (z) and Early Universe Spectrometer (ZEUS-2) may be offered as a PI instrument during Period 93. ZEUS-2 is a broadband spectrograph covering 7 telluric windows covering 200 to 850 µm. For details, see Ferkinho et al. 2010.