ESO received 1286 valid proposals for observations in Period 118 (1 May 2027 - 30 April 2028). The deadline for proposal submission was 22 September 2026. On the VLT, the most demanded ESO instrument was MUSE with a request of 7170 hours, followed by ESPRESSO (5873 hours), and XSHOOTER (4971) hours. HARPS/NIRPS on the ESO 3.6-m telescope was the most demanded instrument at La Silla, with a combined request of 4470 hours, followed by SOXS, with a combined request of 3045 hours.
ESO Period 118 Proposal Submission Statistics
Published: 29 Sep 2026
At Paranal, the telescope with the highest oversubscription is Yepun (UT4), with a total request of 9936 hours, followed by Melipal (UT3; 8300 hours). Visitor Mode was requested by 10% of VLT programmes. This period ESO received 36 proposals for Large Programmes, 10 VLTI/I-ALMA joint proposals, and 1 VLTI/I-XMM joint proposal.
The distributed peer review (DPR) is evaluating proposals requesting a total telescope time below a certain threshold. Different thresholds were adopted to balance the panel workloads across scientific categories.
The Observing Programmes Committee and its Expert Panels evaluate 27% of submitted proposals in this Period, covering 73% of the total requested time. The rest of the proposals are being evaluated by the DPR.
The percentages of submitted proposals across science categories were:
- Cosmology and Intergalactic Medium 9%
- Galaxies 24%
- Interstellar Medium, Star Formation, and Planetary Systems 36%
- Stellar Evolution 31%
Proposing teams can expect to be informed of the outcome of the review process in the second half of January 2027.