Statistics on refereed publications in 2016 that make use of data from ESO telescopes have just been published by the ESO library. The statistics are calculated using the ESO Telescope Bibliography (telbib), a database of refereed publications that use ESO data. In January 2017, the total number of publications in telbib resulting from the La Silla Paranal Observatory since 1996, passed 13 000. The annual summary of publication statistics, with breakdown by telescopes and instruments and comparison with other observatories, is available as Basic ESO Publication Statistics.

Special Session SS20 at EWASS, Prague, 26 – 30 June 2017

The European Week of Astronomy and Space Science (EWASS) Special Session No. 20, held on the first day (26 June) of the conference, will be devoted to the three particular modes of observing with ALMA that demonstrate the unique capabilities of the facility: High-Frequency Observations (specifically in Bands 8, 9 and 10); High-Angular-Resolution Observations with baslines up to 16 km; Solar Observations. Further details on the SS20 site.

ALMA Cycle 4 (1 Oct 2016 – 30 Sept 2017) continues and PI observations will resume on 1 March 2017 after the "austral winter" engineering period through February. More information on the ALMA Status page.

Amended restrictions on humidity, wind and dew point applicable to opening and closing of the domes of the ESO 3.6-metre and the New Technology Telescope (NTT) have been recently released. Both telescopes wil be closed when humidy reaches 80% and can only be opened when it is below 70% for 30 minutes. For the ESO 3.6-metre, the new wind speed restriction will be 18 ms^-1. The full listing of the weather restrictions for La Silla telescopes is available here (PDF). These stricter limits lead to a very small increase in weather downtime as result of increased telescope and instrument safety.

VLTI Community Days: ESO Headquarters, Garching, Germany, 8–10 March 2017
VLTI Winter School: ESO Headquarters, Garching, Germany, 6–8 March 2017

The Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) is currently undergoing deployment of the second generation instruments and infrastructure upgrades, and the K-band multi-beam combiner instrument GRAVITY is being commissioned. The VLTI Community Days are a unique opportunity to get together and reflect on the present and plan for the future.

The VISTA Variables in the Via Lactea (VVV) survey fourth data release (DR4) provides VISTA tile images and source lists in ZYJHKs filters, processed by the Cambridge Astronomical Survey Unit (CASU), for a total sky coverage of 560 square degrees. DR4 contains science data products from observations in the period 1 October 2013 – 15 October 2015, and also science data products from observations in September 2010 to September 2013 not included in the previous release.

It is expected that phased ALMA will participate in some Global 3mm VLBI Array (GMVA) observations during ALMA Cycle 5 (1 October 2017 – 30 September 2018); see the full announcement for further details. Any GMVA proposal requesting phased ALMA during Cycle 5 must be submitted by the 1 February 2017 deadline; see the proposal call .

The latest release of ALMA Science Verification (SV) data will contain observations of the Sun obtained during the Solar commissioning campaigns in 2014 and 2015. The release contains mosaics and single pointing observations in quiet and active solar regions at Band 3 and 6 with the 12-metre, 7-metre and total power arrays. The data are available under ALMA Science Portal SV.

The 99th Observing Programmes Committee (OPC) met on 15–17 November 2016. A total of 1044 (10-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. Of these, 193 nights were allocated to filler programmes. The submission deadline for Phase 2 Service Mode observations is 9 February 2017, see announcement.

From October to December 2016, Unit Telescope 4 (UT4) was shut down to install the new Deformable Secondary Mirror (DSM), as part of the Adaptive Optics Faciity (AOF) project. The joint planning by the AOF Project and Paranal teams allowed a very efficient re-commissioning of the telescope, and tests were also successfully performed on some of the AOF sub-systems.