Home

ESO Call for Proposals – P90

1. Hardware item Action Time minutes HAWK I Acquisition and Instrument Setup 1 HAWK I Acquisition MoveToPixel and Instrument Setup 3 HAWK I Telescope Offset large 0 75 HAWK I Telescope Offset small 0 15 HAWK I Read out per DIT 0 03 HAWK I After exposure per exposure 0 13 HAWK I Filter change 0 35 NACO see User Manual see User Manual SINFONI Acquisition no AO 3 SINFONI Acquisition AO NGS 2 4x DIT NDIT 4 SINFONI Acquisition AO LGS 9 4 x DIT x NDIT 4 SINFONI Acquisition target AO and no AO 4 4 x DIT x NDIT SINFONI Instrument setup per grating change 2 5 SINFONI Science exposure read out per DIT 0 07 SINFONI Detector setup per DITxNDIT 0 3 AMBER One calibrated Visibility CAL SCI CAL AMBER ERE 15 45 number of bands AMBER MR HR 30 45 x number of bands AMBER One calibrated Visibility SCI CAL AMBER LRP 10 30 number of bands AMBER MR HR 20 30 number of bands 6 MIDI One calibrated Visibility SCI CALU 50 MIDI One calibrated Visibility CAL SCI CAL 75 VISTA Preset 2 VISTA Preset 2nd OBs 0 33 and following in concatenation target separation in deg 60 VIRCAM Guide Star handling 0 05 VIRCAM Autoguiding start 0 083 VIRCAM Active Optics start 0 75 VIRCAM Filter change 0 35 0 67 VIRCAM Detector readout 0 03 per DIT VIRCAM Image writing to disk per exposure 0 067 VIRCAM Pawprint change 0 17 VIRCAM Jitter offset 0 067
2. 13 4 Observing programme execution s no o sa aaa toea doe a aa ete ee ee 13 4 1 Service Mode run execution i xos s cos 500646046444 Bd eed baw Gas 13 5 Phase 2 Service Mode policy constraints and targets are binding 13 6 PUMAS TIAS o oi soad e Re ee apa ba Oe Gde ioe ee 13 7 Data rights archiving data distribution o oooi e a ea a aapa a E a o A 13 8 Publication of ESO telescope results oaa aaa a 13 9 Press Releases IV Appendix A Acronyms vii Part I Phase 1 Instructions 1 ESO Proposals Invited The European Southern Observatory ESO invites proposals for observations at ESO tele scopes during Period 90 1 October 2012 31 March 2013 The following instruments are offered in this period La Silla EFOSC2 ESO Faint Object Spectrograph 2 FEROS Fibre fed Extended Range Optical Spectrograph HARPS High Accuracy Radial velocity Planetary Searcher Sofl Son of ISAAC WEI Wide Field Imager Paranal AMBER Near infrared interferometric instrument CRIRES Cryogenic high resolution IR Echelle Spectrograph FLAMES Fibre Large Array Multi Element Spectrograph FORS2 FOcal Reducer low dispersion Spectrograph 2 HAWK I High Acuity Wide field K band Imager ISAAC Infrared Spectrometer And Array Camera MIDI MID infrared Interferometric instrument NAOS CONICA High Resolution NIR Camera and Spectrograph OmegaCAM Wide Field Imager for the VST at Paranal SINFONI Spe
3. High Accuracy Radial velocity Planetary Search on the 3 6 m 24 5 4 FEROS Fibre fed Extended Range Optical Spectrograph on the 2 2m 25 5 5 WFI Wide Field Imager on the 2 21 o 26 6 Scientific Instruments Paranal 26 6 1 CRIRES Cryogenic high resolution IR chelle Spectrograph lt s e 6 66 5444 26 6L Gealibratiem ss ic 2h bs a Poe ke ALAA RE Sa EM eee eS 27 6 12 Sensitivity ss 2 bb eh Be a ee ROSS Rae be ee Ee 27 6 2 FORS2 Focal Reducer low dispersion Spectrograph 2 27 6 2 1 Multi object Spectroscopy 2 2 0 ce ee 28 6 22 High throughput filters 05444464244 ooo eGo a Mla g RS 28 6 2 3 Volume phased holographic grisms e e e 28 6 24 Polarimetry so 6 2 wae eS a a a AAA 28 6 2 5 Imaging modes and performance summary 2005 28 6 2 6 FORS Instrumental Mask Simulator FIMS o ooo 29 vi 8 9 6 2 7 Accurate Astrometry or Pre imaging Required 6 3 FLAMES Fibre Large Array Multi Element Spectrograph 6 3 1 Tnstroument Capabilities ssa c aia 6 ead be a as ee a 6 3 2 Observational Requirements o e eee eee GS A li o E A BA a A oe ae Hane BU cee ee Oe 6 3 4 ESO Public Spectroscopic Surveys o e 6 4 UVES Ultraviolet and Visual Echelle Spectrograph lt s s sis ame eae ee sa 6 5 XSHOOTER multi band medium resolution chelle spec
4. e Paranal News on Paranal telescopes and instruments can be found at http www eso org sci facilities lpo news VLT XMM proposals It will not be possible to apply for VLT XMM time in Period 90 proposals under this scheme will be invited again in Period 91 VLT Visitor instruments No Visitor Instrument focus is available on the VLT due to the installation of KMOS UTI Antu CRIRES CRIRES has two fixed slits of 0 2 and 0 4 Attached night time calibrations will be possible using either the 0 2 or 0 4 slit Starting from Period 90 a metrology system ensures sub pixel reproducibility of the wavelength scale It is possible that the calibration frequency will be decreased due to the improved stability of the instrument Users of CRIRES should specify Precipitable water vapour PWV as a constraint during their Phase 1 and Phase 2 preparation Large Programme proposals using CRIRES will not be accepted x KMOS will be installed on the UT1 Nasmyth B platform in August 2012 It is expected that its commissioning runs will take place during Period 89 and 90 UT2 Kueyen x XSHOOTER The background between the OH lines in the J and H bands is strongly affected by photons scattered from the very bright K band orders In order to allow sky limited performance in the J and H bands two new slits of width 0 6 and 0 9 combined with a K band blocking filter were installed on the slit
5. 17 seeing lt 1 5 To gt 2 0ms and airmass lt 1 7 The distance of the natural guide star from the science target must be less than 57 5 For observations using the fringe tracker FINITO V lt 15 distance lt 13 19 Figure 5 Sky accessibility and vignetting by neighbouring domes for the four UTs This shows the sky accessibility for the 4 UTs The outermost circle marks the telescope safety limit zenith distance 70 Concentric circles denote zenith distance intervals of 10 and are marked with the corresponding airmass value An object will move along a curves of constant declination with solid dots marking movement in 1 hr interval The maximum visibility period of an object can be read directly counting intervals between dots The smaller plots for UT2 UT3 and UT4 are identical only the vignetting due to neighbouring domes vary 4 2 3 Laser Guide Star facility on UT4 Important note The Laser Guide Star Facility is expected to be decommissioned at the end of Period 92 to allow for the installation of the Deformable Secondary Mirror on UT4 part of the Adaptive Optics Facility All programmes requiring its use should therefore be completed by then UT4 is equipped with a sodium laser that can create an artificial point source to be used with NACO and SINFONTI A tip tilt star TTS is always necessary to correct for tip and tilt However SINFONI and NACO can be used with the Laser Guide Star
6. H2 and three filters at 1 061 1 187 and 2 090 um The field of view of HAWK I on the sky is 7 5 x7 5 covered by the mosaic of the four Hawaii 2RG chips The four detectors are separated by a cross shaped gap of 15 The pixel scale is 0 1064 pix with negligible distortions lt 0 3 across the field of view The image quality is seeing limited down to at least 0 4 seeing i e 0 3 measured in K 15 217 lt v Figure 7 Sketch of the HAWK I field of view 40 6 9 2 Observing modes HAWK I is a wide field imager and the standard observing mode is imaging A Fast Photometry FastPhot mode is also offered in both Visitor Mode and Service Mode However in the case of lunar occultations only disappearances can be supported in Service Mode In the case of observing appearances Visitor Mode must be requested For more details about the FastPhot Mode please refer to the HAWK I User Manual 6 9 3 Brightness limit and persistence The HAWK I detectors show a persistence effect if the observed sources are heavily saturated which affects subsequent observations of faint sources In general observations of fields containing objects brighter than Ks 8 1 mag H 9 1 mag or J 8 8 mag should be carried out in Visitor Mode When using Fast Photometry these limits can be overriden under bad seeing conditions or if telescope active optics is requested to provide slightly degraded corrections BadAO mode 6 9 4
7. gt Ses ESO Call for Proposals P90 Q Proposal Deadline 29 March 2012 12 00 noon CEST Call for Proposals ESO Period 90 Proposal Deadline 29 March 2012 12 00 noon Central European Summer Time Issued 29 February 2012 Preparation of the ESO Call for Proposals is the responsibility of the ESO Observing Programmes Office OPO For questions regarding preparation and submission of proposals to ESO telescopes please contact the ESO Observing Programmes Office opo eso org The ESO Call for Proposals document is a fully linked pdf file with bookmarks that can be viewed with Adobe Acrobat Reader 4 0 or higher Internal document links appear in red and external links appear in blue Links are clickable and will navigate the reader through the document internal links or will open a web browser external links ESO Call for Proposals Editor Gaitee A J Hussain Approved _____ Tim de Zeeuw Director General Contents I Phase 1 Instructions 1 1 ESO Proposals Invited 1 1 1 Important recent changes since Periods 88 and 89 000 2 1 2 Important reminders o soi 2 20 4 fe abe ne bee aE A a eS 6 1 3 Foreseen changes in the upcoming Periods o o 8 2 Getting Started 9 2 1 Distribution of telescope demand e 9 2 1 1 Distribution of requested Right Ascension o o 9 2 1 2 Prediction of RA demand during Period 90 o oo 11 2 2 Exposure Ti
8. in almost real time extracted 1 dimensional wavelength calibrated spectra which can be used as a preview and to check S N The core of the FEROS pipeline is included in the standard MIDAS distribution and together with the FEROS Data Reduction System FEROS DRS package provided at the FEROS web site can be used to re reduce the data to obtain publication quality results Up to date information and documentation on the instrument can be found via the FEROS web page 1The two spectral ranges 853 4 854 1 nm and 886 2 887 5 nm are lost due to non overlap of the spectral orders 26 5 5 WFI Wide Field Imager on the 2 2 m The Wide Field Imager WFI has a field of view of 34 x33 and is composed of a mosaic of 4x2 CCD detectors with a pixel size of 0 24 and narrow inter chip gaps yielding a filling factor of 95 9 It offers excellent sensitivity from the atmospheric UV cut off to the near IR All applicants should take the availability restrictions of the 2 2 m during ESO time and the corresponding lunar phases into account Section 4 1 WE is offered in Visitor Mode only The filter storage and exchange mechanism with 50 positions accommodates 11 broad band filters including a fully transparent one 27 medium band filters covering the whole wavelength range and 8 narrow band filters centred at ONI SII Ha and a few other wavelengths The large number of medium and narrow band filters are specifically selected
9. pre imaging from the allocation to the main part of the project see Section 13 6 Monitoring in Service Mode Monitoring a target in Service Mode is carried out on a best effort basis only i e a monitoring sequence may be interrupted by long periods of unsuitable weather conditions or Visitor Mode scheduling Rapid Response Mode RRM FORS2 UVES XSHOOTER ISAAC SINFONI and HAWK I continue to be offered in this mode in Period 90 RRM observations that correspond to events with exceptional characteristics may be activated during either Service Mode or Visitor Mode runs over which they have observational priority except if the service or visitor mode runs involve strictly time critical observations For details on the RRM policies see Section 11 3 1 VLTI open for Visitor Instruments The possibility to install a Visitor Instrument at the VLTI has been offered to the community since P85 However given the arrival of the second generation VLTI instruments ESO can not guarantee the availability of a VLTI Visitor focus beyond Period 91 e La Silla Support during observing runs and transportation schedule A streamlined operation is in effect in La Silla Technical and logistical support will be delivered as usual by ESO staff but no specific support astronomer is assigned Please note that the transportation schedule to and from La Silla may have an impact on the arrival and departure days of the observers at the site S
10. resulting in a resolving power of 115 000 Both fibres are equipped with an image scrambler to provide a uniform spectrograph pupil illumination independent of pointing decentring The spectral coverage distributed over the chelle orders 89 161 is 378nm 691 nm As the detector consists of a mosaic of 2 CCDs altogether 4kx 4k 15 wm pixels one spectral order N 115 from 530 to 533nm is lost in the gap between the two chips HARPS reaches a signal to noise ratio of 110 per pixel at 550nm for a My 6 G2V star in 1 minute 1 seeing airmass 1 2 When using the Simultaneous Thorium Reference Method which is the mode for achieving the highest radial velocity accuracy this signal to noise ratio should be sufficient to achieve a photon noise dominated radial velocity accuracy of about 0 90 m s Taking into account errors introduced by the guiding focus and instrumental uncertainties a global radial velocity accuracy of about 1m s RMS is achieved This is obtained for spectral types later than G and for non rotating stars vsini lt 2km s In simultaneous Th Ar mode HARPS users should strictly follow the calibrations foreseen by the Calibration Plan which includes a number of biases flatfields and Th Ar exposures taken before the night Since Period 89 a Fabry Perot Calibration System FPCS is available as an alternative calibration source for simultaneous drift measurements The Fabry Perot etalon is illuminated by a super continuu
11. s perspective the four UTs can be regarded as identical The Paranal Observatory site is located at 70 25 longitude West 24 40 latitude South at an altitude of 2635m Each UT primary mirror is a single Zerodur blank of diameter 8 20 m the secondary has a diameter of 1 12m The UTs have four foci two Nasmyth one Cassegrain and one Coud They are Alt Az mounted and cannot observe at zenith distances less than 4 or larger than 70 The VLT Interferometer only operates at zenith distances less than 60 4 2 2 UTs Performance e Pointing and tracking The UTs have a pointing accuracy of 3 The expected tracking accuracy under nominal wind load is 0 1 rms over 30 minutes when field stabilization is active The UTs also have the capability of tracking targets with additional velocities e g Solar System targets under full active optics control Proposers who need this capability should specify the additional velocities in RA and Dec for their targets e Active optics guiding For all observations a guide star is used for acquisition active optics and field stabilization The typical guide star magnitude ranges from R 11 to R 14 in optimal conditions Observations for which no suitable guide star exists cannot be carried out e Adaptive optics guiding VLTI only The Coud foci of the UTs are equipped with MACAO Multi Application Curvature Adaptive Optics units which can be used with natural guide stars with 1 lt V lt
12. will have to reference the corresponding proposals Calibration Programme proposals must be submitted using the ESOFORM template for Normal Programmes In Box 8A entitled Scientific rationale the proposers should clearly state the limits of the existing calibration plan and the expected improvement that can result from the proposed observations Moreover the proposal should emphasise the relevance and the over all scientific gain of the calibration techniques and products resulting from these observations Calibration Programmes do not pertain to any of the standard OPC categories A B C or D since in general they are not directly related to a unique scientific area the special sub category code LO should be used to distinguish them The PIs of Calibration Programmes are required to deliver to ESO the resulting Advanced Data Products within one year of the completion of the corresponding observations The procedure to be followed is described at http archive eso org cms eso data data submission 11 6 Director s Discretionary Time Up to 5 of the available ESO general observing time may be used for Director s Discretionary Time DDT proposals in the current period Only DDT proposals belonging to one of the following categories will be considered e proposals of ToO nature requiring the immediate observation of a sudden and unexpected astronomical event e proposals requesting observations on a highly competitive scienti
13. 2 RMS objects can be observed at zenithal distances from 2 to 75 Currently moving targets can be observed only with differential tracking not guiding Moving objects can be followed for up to 15 min with a tracking error smaller than 0 5 e 3 6 m telescope The 3 6 m telescope was commissioned in 1977 and completely upgraded in 1999 Only the f 8 Cassegrain focus is available In August 2004 the f 8 top end was completely replaced by a new unit permitting the secondary mirror to be actively controlled This system provides an improved image quality The pointing error is better than 5 RMS The only available facility instrument HARPS is permanently mounted at the Cassegrain focus The pointing limitations are described in the 3 6 m pages Full differential guiding is possible to observe moving targets e 2 2 m Telescope The 2 2 m telescope is a Ritchey Chr tien design mounted in an equatorial fork mount It is on loan to ESO from the Max Planck Gesellschaft MPG and has been in operation since 1984 The current loan agreement between ESO and the MPG ends on March 31 2013 According to this the MPG is allocated 9 months of observations per year 18 Accordingly a preliminary breakdown of the time on the 2 2 m telescope in Period 90 is as follows from noon of the start date to noon of the end date from October 1 2012 to October 29 2012 MPG time from October 29 2012 to November 20 2012 ESO time from November 20
14. 2 5 sigma in 1 hour using a V 11 5 mag reference 10 away from the source with a visible seeing of 0 8 Please note that these limits are valid for point sources and have been computed over apertures with a radius of 1 25 times the values listed in the first row For NB filters subtract 2 to 3 magnitudes for spectroscopy subtract 4 to 5 magnitudes be carried out in visitor mode Simultaneous Differential Imager SDI High contrast imaging can be carried out using the simultaneous differential imager SDI Contrasts of 30 000 can be obtained at 05 in 40 min at S N of 6 between a bright H lt 7 mag primary star and a methane rich Teg lt 1000 K companion The pixel scale of this mode is 17 25 mas pixel and the FOV is 8x8 For more information consult the NACO web pages Spectroscopic Modes Grism spectroscopy can be carried out using two slit widths 86 mas and 172 mas The slits are 40 long restricted to 28 for the S L27 cameras Prism spectroscopy is only offered in VM for a limited number of setups and without any pipeline support Slitless spectroscopy has been decommissioned APP enhanced grism spectroscopy is available in visitor mode only and for limited setups since P87 see above 6 10 3 NACO Calibration plan and special calibrations The NACO calibration plan does not support all combinations of detector readout mode and instrument setup Observations requiring special calibrations must be carried o
15. 4 For any given target field the astrometric effects can also be found using the FLAMES Airmass Plotter 6 3 3 Calibration All required standard FLAMES calibrations are acquired by the observatory staff during daytime No night time calibrations are foreseen except for screen flatfields so called attached flatfields if additional flatfielding accuracy is required For ARGUS mode screen flatfields are taken for Service Mode programmes in twilight together with a spectrophotometric standard star at no extra cost 6 3 4 ESO Public Spectroscopic Surveys In Period 90 there will be approximately 30 nights assigned to the ESO Public Spectroscopic Survey entitled The Gaia ESO Survey on FLAMES Further details are available on the ESO Public Surveys Projects webpage Proposers should check that their science goals and targets do not duplicate those of this public survey 6 4 UVES Ultraviolet and Visual Echelle Spectrograph UVES is the high resolution optical spectrograph of the VLT and is located at the Nasmyth B focus of UT2 UVES is a cross dispersed chelle spectrograph designed to operate with high efficiency from the atmospheric cut off at 300 nm to the long wavelength limit of the CCD detectors 1100 nm The light beam from the telescope is split in two arms UV to Blue and Visual to Red within the instrument The two arms can be operated separately or in parallel via a dichroic beam splitter With two dichroic observation
16. FORS2 spectroscopic modes for Period 90 Instrument Mode Rs A AX Magnitude limit E2V MOS movable slits 260 1700 R 24 0 22 8 Long slit Spectroscopy 260 1700 R 24 0 22 8 Spectropolarimetryl 260 1700 R 19 2 17 2 MIT MOS movable slits 260 2600 R 24 2 23 3 MXU exchangeable masks 260 2600 R 24 2 23 3 Long slit Spectroscopy 260 2600 R 24 2 23 3 HIT MS spectroscopy 660 780 R 19 5 12 3 HIT OS spectroscopy 660 780 R 14 3 1 In multi object spectroscopy one may have 19 slitlets of length alternating between 20 and 22 2 Only offered with the SR collimator 3 In long slit spectroscopy the slit is chosen out of a set of 9 slits with fixed width between 0 3 and 2 5 4 In HIT OS mode slit masks with widths between 0 5 and 5 0 are available The magnitude limits given in Table 3 are the R band magnitudes of a point source of zero colour that would result in a S N of 5 per pixel at 650 nm grisms 1501 and 600RI in the continuum in a one hour integration with dark sky clear conditions a seeing FWHM of 078 an airmass of 1 2 and using the 170 slit and the SR collimator The two limits given are for the two representative resolutions In the case of the HIT MS mode the two limits represent the slowest and fastest readout modes available In the case of the HIT OS mode it is simply the limiting magnitude for the slowest mode available HIT OS5 256sec 6 2 6 FORS
17. Given the arrival of the second generation VLTI instruments ESO cannot guarantee the availability of MIDI beyond Period 91 Proposals for Large Programme using MIDI beyond Period 91 will therefore not be accepted e FLASH The 460 GHz channel will be equipped with an ALMA band 8 receiver This will improve the receiver temperature significantly and expand the IF bandwidth to 2x4 GHz The upgraded FLASH may be offered during period 91 subject to successful commissioning e ZEUS 2 Pending successful commissioning the redshift z and Early Universe Spectrometer ZEUS 2 may be offered as a PI instrument during Period 91 ZEUS 2 is a broad band spectrograph covering 7 telluric windows covering 200 to 850um For details see Ferkinhoff et_al 2010 e CHAMP This instrument is undergoing repairs and maintenance and is expected to be offered during Period 91 2 Getting Started Observing proposals must contain a scientific case a summary of the proposed observing programme a list of desired instrument modes and configurations a target list and a precise definition of required observing conditions seeing atmospheric transparency lunar illumination etc In addition a calculation of the number of hours nights of observing time needed to accomplish the scientific goals must be carried out and summarized in the proposal It is therefore important that proposers consult technical documentation about the capabilities and sensitivities of t
18. In order to efficiently verify and submit your proposal please note that e Postscript figures are not accepted The proposals are compiled using the pdfIATpX package which accepts only PDF up to version 1 4 and JPEG file formats Please note that there is a size limit of 1MB for each figure to be uploaded e Always compile your proposal locally with pdfATFX Some of the checks are made at the ETEX level and checking your proposal in this way will save you time If there are errors please read the output carefully in order to identify the problem e Further checks are made by the web software the receiver which uploads your proposal and checks that it complies with ESO s requirements The receiver allows you to verify your 16 proposal without actually submitting it You should take advantage of this feature to check that your proposal is technically correct well before the Phase 1 deadline This can be done by verifying a skeleton version of the proposal early this version should contain all the technical details but not necessarily the full scientific description This will ease the final submission process considerably e Plan ahead Over past periods congestion of the proposal submission system has repeatedly occurred in the last few hours before the proposal deadline leading to delays in response time that occasionally exceeded 1 hour Try to submit proposals at least one day before the deadline and avoid last minut
19. Instrumental Mask Simulator FIMS To prepare precise target acquisitions during Phase 2 ESO provides the FIMS software tool Usage of FIMS is required when using several spectroscopic modes as well as to prepare occulting bar imaging and spectropolarimetric observations Phase 1 proposers who wish to justify their time request by optimising movable or MXU slitlet positions during Phase 1 may find it useful to download and install FIMS Please refer to http www eso org sci observing phase2 SMGuidelines FIMS html for instructions on how to install FIMS and to the FIMS Users Manual on how to use FIMS Users are reminded that only the FIMS version specifically assigned to a given period may be used Older versions should never be used as they may not contain the correct FORS set up 6 2 7 Accurate Astrometry or Pre imaging Required Highly accurate relative astrometry is required for any observing mode that makes use of FIMS or does blind offsets during the acquisition The mask preparation with FIMS requires input images that are astrometrically corrected within the definitions and precision given below DSS images will in almost all cases not be suitable for the task 30 In general the relative astrometry must be known to better than 1 6 of the slit width over the entire field of view Relative astrometry here means that the slit positions must be known relative to those of the reference stars in the field of view with the given
20. This limits the dead time between one observation and the next to less than 15 minutes including the telescope preset and the acquisition of the next field e A medium high resolution optical spectrograph GIRAFFE with three types of feeding fibre systems MEDUSA IFU ARGUS e A link to the UVES spectrograph Red Arm via 8 single fibres of 1 entrance aperture Special observing software FLAMES OS coordinates the operation of the different subsystems also allowing simultaneous acquisition of UVES and GIRAFFE observations with the observing modes listed in Table 4 For combined observations the exposure times for UVES and GIRAFFE do not need to be the same Note that it is not possible to observe simultaneously in two GIRAFFE modes or to observe the same target simultaneously with the two spectrographs For more detailed information on instrument setups and performance estimates the user is referred to the FLAMES web page 6 3 1 Instrument Capabilities GIRAFFE is a medium high R 5 600 48 000 resolution spectrograph for the entire visible range 370 950 nm It is equipped with two gratings and several filters are available to select the required spectral range Five additional fibres allow simultaneous wavelength calibration of every exposure Each object can be observed in only one or a fraction of a single chelle order at once The fibre system feeding GIRAFFE consists of the following components e Two MEDUSA slits on
21. VIRCAM Micro step 0 067 VST Preset 2 VST Offset at template start 0 25 VST Set rotator position angle PA PA lt 180 PA 120 VST 2nd OB and following in concatenation VST Preset 0 5 target separation in deg 90 VST Set rotator PA PA PAn 1 120 OmegaCAM Guide Star acquisition 1 00 OmegaCAM Acquisition of new Guide star after offset 1 00 OmegaCAM Re acquisition of same Guide Star after offset 0 08 OmegaCAM Time for pick object 0 75 OmegaCAM Filter change different same magazine 1 08 or 1 92 OmegaCAM Detector readout and data writing to disk 0 67 OmegaCAM Start Active Optics Image analysis 4 00 14 DIT and NDIT as required for the AO natural guide star NGS 15 This time includes all telescope and instrument overheads as well as the integration times on the science target and the calibrator 16 With a maximum number of 3 bands per wavelength setting For each new wavelength setting a new calibrated visibility has to be obtained 58 10 Calibration Plans and Pipelines 10 1 Data Quality Control ESO has implemented calibration plans for all instruments The primary purposes of these plans are to assure data quality monitor instrument performance and calibrate science observations Based on these plans calibration data are obtained for certain standard instrument modes on a regular basis Paranal calibration data are reviewed on a daily basis by Paranal Science Operations and the Garching Data Processing a
22. VLTI instruments will be offered in two modes Visitor Mode VM and Service Mode SM These modes have been extensively described in the Data Flow Operations section of the December 1997 and June 1998 issues of The ESO Messenger see also an article on Service Mode scheduling in the September 2001 issue As part of the Phase 1 proposal investigators will have to specify which mode they desire and why they request that mode While it will be attempted as much as possible to follow the desire of the proposers with respect to observing mode ESO does reserve the right to allocate time in a mode different from the one requested Note especially the restrictions of available modes detailed in Sects 12 1 and 12 2 and the policy in Section 13 3 The telescope as well as the instruments will be operated by observatory staff only The astronomer interfaces with the telescope instruments via Observation Blocks OBs produced using the Phase 2 Proposal Preparation P2PP tool see http www eso org sci observing phase2 P2PPTool html 12 1 Visitor Mode In Visitor Mode VM the astronomer is physically present at the observatory during the obser vations Each approved VM run will be allocated specific calendar nights One of the programme investigators will travel to the Observatory and execute the observations Visitor Mode is not offered on VST VISTA or APEX 67 For all ESO instruments data acquisition will be done by executing Obser
23. ancillary files that are needed to process the data e g acquisition images etc As announced earlier the PI Pack service has been discontinued At the same time a new archive service is in place to associate the raw science files with the raw calibration and ancillary files needed for science processing Please note that the 1 year proprietary period starts as soon as the data are made electronically available to the PI Use of non standard observing configurations The use of non standard instrumen tal modes configurations or filters requires the prior approval by the ESO User Support Department This approval must be obtained before submitting the Phase 1 proposal emails including a detailed justification should be directed to usd helpOeso org at least two weeks before the proposal submission deadline also see 13 2 Backup programme Although Phase 1 proposals requesting Visitor Mode do not need to include backup targets and or a backup programme the observer should prepare one in case of unfavourable weather conditions see Section 4 2 7 The original science goals must be adhered to in this backup scenario Approval of a backup programme must be sought at least one month in advance through the change request form http www eso org sci observing phase2 ProgChange see Section 12 1 The information provided in the proposal is binding all observing runs must be executed as described in the proposal Deviations from th
24. are binding in Phase 2 hence proposers should check the exact definition of seeing in the ETC used to estimate the observing time necessary to complete the programme They should also ensure that the observing conditions specified in the proposal are consistent with these requirements The same is true for the requested sky transparency and lunar phase Non photometric sky transparency can be 13 simulated by adding 0 1 0 2 mag to the object magnitude for CLEAR THIN CIRRUS conditions respectively 2 3 Online Data Products Public Surveys Science Verification Advanced Data Products Public data from observations made with Paranal and La Silla telescopes are available from the ESO Science Archive Facility Most of the data obtained in Period 87 and before are available in the archive Users are reminded of these opportunities in order to stimulate the scientific use of the Archive and to better prepare for Period 90 projects Several sets of reduced data products are available online at http archive eso org cms eso data data packages These include ESO Advanced Data Products ADP delivered to ESO by the community from the GOODS campaign the ESO Imaging Survey EIS as well as Science Verification Demonstration and Commissioning data of VLT and VLTI instruments Raw data from the Public Surveys are immediately available and advanced data products e g stacked images catalogues will become available in incremental releas
25. ba SAA DE wa we ee a aA 6113 SKY GUDACHOR oras dinok ak RR we a eo ae wae Eek eS GALA Calibrations 2 444442 bE owed Re ee EGE Re ee ee eS 6 11 5 Modes that are not offered gt so ca 24642 serna a eh ae 6 12 MIDI MID infrared Interferometric instrument 6 13 AMBER Astronomical Multi BEam combineR o e 6 13 1 Spectral Modes and Coverage 6132 Integration times DIT os o ias a e 613 3 Liming Magait deS ns s oc we Eh a a A Ua E TA E e ea a 6 13 4 Calibration strategies mior fe ius pei eoe d e a ec aa a E 613o Execution MES eacee Bg ral a A eS Re a A Ee 6 14 VIRCAM VISTA InfraRed CAMera 00 000020 eee Ola Ate cg a A oe Ge a Ree a PERAK RR eS 6 14 2 Focal plane geometry e 6 14 3 Instrument periormanice s c opio boe eii ene ee da Boe E EE Res 6 14 4 VISTA Public Surveys and Open Time Proposals 6 14 5 VIRCAM calibration plam 2 224022443 a CD Cee Re Gelb OmesaCAM yah eb ke RE Ee ER ee eb eee eee Poa Yad eed Scientific Instruments Chajnantor Tel BBs ca ts Boe Be a cd oe i ee PAE eS 7 2 LABOCA the Large APEX Bolometer Camera 0005 7 3 SABOCA the Submillimetre APEX Bolometer Camera 7 4 FLASH heterodyne receiver MPIfR Pl instrument Visitor Instruments How to estimate overheads 10 Calibration Plans and Pipelines 101 Data Quality Control e s ecole a e
26. be aware that the ESOFORM package is regularly updated Only the Period 90 package may be used for proposal preparation The telescope schedules are prepared using scheduling software that relies on accurate constraints see Alves 2005 The ESO Messenger 119 20 Hence scheduling constraints that are not indicated or are inaccurately specified in BOX 13 of ESOFORM are unlikely to be taken into account by the scheduler Retrofitting scheduling constraints after the release of the schedule is 14 not possible 3 2 1 Important recent changes to ESOFORM e ESO proposal submission deadline Please note that the ESO deadline will be strictly enforced users should plan accordingly It is the PI s responsibility to resolve any verification or upload problems related to the instrument configuration LaTeX file or associated figures The online receiver will switch off at 12 00 CEST on the day of the deadline ESO cannot pro vide support with problem proposal submissions after 11 00 CEST Requests for submissions or amendments after the deadline will not be considered e Precipitable water vapour PWV constraints PWV constraints must be specified for CRIRES and all APEX instruments in the Additional Notes column of the Target macro Please see the ESOFORM User Manual for more details e Changes to scheduling requirements specifications A strict verification of the ob serving dates specified in the TimeCritical macro is carried out at propo
27. degree diameter field of view with a loosely packed detector mo saic totalling 67 million pixels of mean size 0 339 The point spread function PSF of the telescope camera system including pixels is measured to have a FHWM of 0 51 Further information on this instrument can be found on the VISTA web page 6 14 1 Filters The filter wheel of VIRCAM has eight slots One is reserved for a blank and the rest holds the filters listed in Table 16 Visitor filters can be accommodated by replacing one of the currently available filters but the specifics of the cryogenic instrument and the usage of the current filters in already scheduled surveys makes this difficult Filter exchanges must be linked to instrument and telescope maintenances which are is expected to occur about once every two years Please contact usd help eso org for further details Table 16 VISTA filters Filter Wavelength FWHM Comment um um Z 0 88 0 12 required by public surveys Y 1 02 0 10 required by public surveys J 1 25 0 18 required by public surveys H 1 65 0 30 required by public surveys Ks 2 15 0 30 required by public surveys NB1 18 1 18 0 01 required by public surveys NB980 NB990 0 98 0 99 0 01 2 sets of filters in one slot require instrument rotation for complete observations 6 14 2 Focal plane geometry The sixteen 2048 x 2048 pixel IR detectors Raytheon VIRGO HgCdTe 0 84 2 5um in the camera are not butta
28. eso org for La Silla Part I of this Call for Proposals provides information on how to complete and submit a Phase 1 proposal to ESO Part II summarises the capabilities of ESO telescopes and available instrumenta tion while Part III describes the policies and procedures regarding proposing for carrying out and publishing ESO observations 1 1 Important recent changes since Periods 88 and 89 e General changes ESO proposal submission deadline Please note that the ESO deadline will be strictly enforced It is the PI s responsibility to resolve any verification or upload problems related to the instrument configuration LaTeX file or associated figures well before the deadline ESO cannot provide support beyond 11 00 CEST on the day of the deadline The online receiver will switch off at 12 00 CEST No submissions or amendments to submitted proposals can be accepted after this time PI Pack Service and Science Processing As of October 2011 the PI Pack ser vice and science processing in Garching have been discontinued PIs and their delegates can access their raw science data through the ESO Science Archive Facility this re quires previous authentication through the ESO User Portal A new archive service the CalSelector has been deployed to automatically associate science files with the complete set of calibrations and ancillary files needed for processing and data exploitation More information on the CalSelector can be
29. exception of HARPS and FEROS they are not included in the data package delivered to the Visitor Mode observer at the end of their observing run Users may copy these science products onto removable media CD ROM and DVD Blank media are available from the Observatory for this purpose However these science products may not be the best possible because they do not use the most recent master calibration data The Garching based offline pipelines for VLT VLTI instruments are run by the Quality Control and Data Processing Group QCDP to produce certified quality checked master calibration prod ucts These are used to monitor instrument performance and assure that it is maintained within the published ranges see below PIs can access their raw science and calibration data via the ESO Science Archive Facility after authenticating with their User Portal credentials Raw data are available via the User Portal shortly after acquisition Raw calibration data can be downloaded from the archive by all users immediately Raw science data are accessible by everyone after the proprietary protection has expired During the propri etary period the data are only accessible to the corresponding PIs and their delegates See the Data Access Page and the Archive User Manual for full details 60 10 4 Quality Control The ESO pipelines are used to monitor the performance of the various instruments and their tem poral trends Extensive information ab
30. is not the instantaneous seeing outside the dome For MACAO instruments CRIRES SINFONI MIDI AMBER FLAMES and the IFU mode of VIMOS where the seeing cannot be measured on the detector the reference seeing is the one measured at the wavefront sensor of the active optics of the telescope Users should note that Phase 1 seeing constraint for observations using AO instruments should not exceed 1 4 VLTI runs with MIDI that do not make use of MACAO should be carried out in Visitor Mode only Note that such observations require excellent seeing conditions 0 6 AMBER observations without MACAO are not possible 15 The seeing specified in the NAOS Preparation Software and therefore in the proposal is the DIMM Differential Image Motion Monitor seeing corrected to zenith Use of the LGS in seeing enhancer mode requires a seeing better than 0 8 e Moon Moon illumination fraction of lunar illumination FLI is defined as the fraction of the lunar disk that is illuminated at local Chile civil midnight where 1 0 is fully illuminated Dark time specified by d in Box 3 of the ESOFORM package corresponds to moon illumination lt 0 4 grey time g to moon illumination between 0 4 and 0 7 and bright time specified by n to moon illumination gt 0 7 However in Service Mode bright time specified by n at Phase 1 is understood as meaning that no restriction is set regarding
31. nights except for runs using Visitor Instruments or for combinations of contiguous EFOSC2 and SOFT runs totalling at least 3 nights Section 4 1 Proposers should keep in mind the need for each OPC panel to cover a broad range of scientific areas proposals may not fall within the main area of specialisation of any of the panel members Proposers should make sure that the context of their project and its relevance for general astrophysics as well as the recent related results are emphasised in a way that can be understood by their peers regardless of their expertise 62 11 2 Large Programmes Large Programmes are not accepted on the 2 2 m VST or VISTA telescopes Due to existing commitments in Period 90 and upcoming changes Large Programmes will also not be accepted for VIMOS ISAAC NACO CRIRES and HAWK I see Section 1 3 for more details Also given the arrival of the second generation VLTI instruments ESO cannot guarantee the availability MIDI and of a VLTI visitor instrument focus beyond Period 91 Up to a maximum of 30 of the observing time distributed by the OPC on the VLT VLTI can be allocated to Large Programmes An ESO Large Programme is defined by the criteria listed below For ESO telescopes one night is 8 hours in even periods and 10 hours in odd periods e A programme requiring a minimum of 100 hours of ESO telescope time e A programme that has the potential to lead to a major advance or breakthrough in the field of st
32. observing may be found in the Service Mode Guidelines 12 2 1 Service Mode policies To ensure the efficiency of SM observing ESO has implemented a number of rules procedures and limitations on Service Mode runs They need to be carefully taken into account at the time of preparing an application for SM observations and are summarized here Please note that these items have important consequences on the way that execution overheads must be taken into account e Some observing strategies cannot be supported in Service Mode in particular real time decisions about the sequencing of OBs complex OB sequencing or decisions based on the outcome of previously executed OBs like adjustment of integration times or execution of some OBs instead of others e Observation Blocks OBs execution OBs are executed non contiguously with the exception of OBs within the concatenation scheduling containers see Section 12 2 1 Since efficient SM operations require continuous flexibility to best match the OB constraints with actual observing conditions OBs for a given run are normally scheduled non contiguously It is thus not possible to reduce acquisition overheads by requiring the sequential execution of OBs with the same target field e Multi mode multi configuration OBs are normally not permitted in SM Although multiple configurations within one OB may sometimes reduce overheads scheduling and cali brating such OBs is extremely inefficient D
33. of RA distribution of demand during Period 90 based on requests for the last five even periods For each telescope this is calculated as 100xTimera Total Time The RA bins are defined as for Fig 2 The first and last bins also include the requested targets with RAs earlier and later than the nominal RA range corresponding to the period Observatory proposers should be aware that choosing targets at certain RA s can have an enormous impact on the probability of successful scheduling and completion of their runs In this section we present statistics for previous periods For the telescope scheduler favourite sky regions mean higher demand for observation time at certain times of the year i e increased com petition for specific Right Ascensions For example there are only a limited number of photometric dark nights in March a particularly popular demand on average 10 times less than the total requested by observers A direct consequence of this is that only the top OPC ranked runs make it to the telescopes during March dark time On the other hand the opposite is true for January see Fig 2 The time request for targets in this month RA 8h30 is relatively low allowing a significantly higher fraction of runs applying for time at this RA to be scheduled if considered useful by the OPC 2 1 2 Prediction of RA demand during Period 90 Based on the time request for all the ESO telescopes in the last 10 periods one can make an educa
34. performance of the instrument only as they depend on the wavelength UVES proposers should use the ETC for their S N estimates Whether or not an image slicer should be used depends on the trade off between slit losses due to seeing and the reduced transmission reduction between 20 and 40 when using an image slicer The special spectral formats and the reduced sample of the sky spectrum with the image slicer also have to be taken into account Eight interference filters are offered with the UVES RED arm in Visitor Mode The purpose of these filters is to isolate certain chelle orders to allow the use of the maximum slit length of 30 The central wavelengths of the filters are chosen to permit observations of the most important emission lines in extended objects The filters and their central wavelengths are Ha 656 6 nm Table 5 UVES Period 90 instrument modes 33 Accessible Maximum Covered Magnitude Instrument mode A range resolution A range limits nm A AA nm Blue arm 300 500 80 000 80 17 18 Red arm 420 1100 110 000 200 400 18 19 Dichroic 1 300 400 80 000 80 17 18 500 1100 110 000 200 18 19 Dichroic 2 300 500 80 000 80 17 18 600 1100 110 000 400 18 19 I cell 500 600 110 000 200 17 1 With a 0 4 blue and 0 3 red slit H6 486 1 nm Or 500 7 nm Orm 436 3 nm Ni 575 5 nm Or 630 0 nm St 672 4 nm and Herr 468 6 nm The peak transmi
35. readout noise but less overheads has been offered in Visitor Mode only No pipeline support is available for this mode With an aperture on the sky of 1 the fibres project onto 5 UVES pixels giving a resolving power of 47 000 For faint objects and depending on the spectral region one or more fibres can be devoted to recording the sky contribution In addition for the 580nm setup only a separate calibration fibre is available to acquire simultaneous ThAr calibration spectra This allows very accurate radial velocity determinations In this configuration 7 fibres remain available for targets on sky The upgrade of the MIT CCD in the UVES red arm in July 2009 has provided a marked increase in sensitivity in the 860 nm setting and decrease in fringing 6 3 2 Observational Requirements The operation of FLAMES requires the observer to have his her own list of target coordinates with a relative astrometric accuracy better than 03 when preparing Phase 2 Bad astrometry results in large losses at the fibre entrance and therefore in much poorer performance The minimum object separation is 11 for MEDUSA fibres The Fibre Positioner is able to place the fibres with an accuracy better than 01 During Phase 2 it is necessary to run dedicated software 32 FPOSS that assigns the fibres to the selected objects Considerations regarding the relevant astrometric effects induced by the atmosphere can be found in the FLAMES Users Manual Sec 4
36. run of a proposal involving a La Silla instrument see Section 11 for more information about the definition of programme and run More generally proposals for long runs are strongly encouraged on the La Silla telescopes Splitting of runs in half nights e g a 3 night run spread over 6 half nights should be avoided as much as possible such runs may be impossible to schedule Pre imaging Pre imaging frames for EFOSC2 will have to be obtained at the beginning of the spectroscopic run The resulting lower efficiency should be taken into account in the computation of the execution time required for such runs e Chajnantor APEX This telescope is offered in Service Mode only In their Phase 1 proposal APEX users must specify in box 5 if time is requested from other APEX partners must specify the requested precipitable water vapour PWV for their project to allow a better distinction between observations requesting a range of atmospheric transparencies should either indicate an appropriate off source position or request time to find such a position if they wish to observe extended line emitting regions need to merge all observations on a given APEX instrument into a single run This also accounts for the different receivers of SHFI which should be grouped into a single run Different runs should only be used for different APEX instruments For Large Programmes this restriction should be understood as a single
37. run per in strument and per period Different runs should be specified for observations planned to take place in different periods 1 3 Foreseen changes in the upcoming Periods e 2 2 m telescope The current operations agreement between ESO and MPG for the 2 2 m telescope ends on March 31 2013 Negotiations are currently underway to extend the agreement e 2nd Generation VLT Instruments The KMOS commissioning will start in Period 89 and extend to at least Period 90 The installation of SPHERE on the UT3 Nasmyth A platform is expected to take place during Period 90 followed by its commissioning which will extend to at least Period 91 The installation of MUSE on the UT4 Nasmyth B platform is expected to take place in the course of 2013 e UT4 Yepun The Laser Guide Star Facility LGSF is expected to be decommissioned at the end of Period 92 to allow for the installation of the Deformable Secondary Mirror part of the AOF All programmes requiring the LGSF should therefore be completed by then In addition UT4 will not be available during part of Period 92 to allow for the installation of the Deformable Secondary Mirror and re commissioning of the telescope e NACO is expected to be removed from the UT4 Nasmyth B platform during 2013 to allow the installation of the second generation instrument MUSE e As in Period 90 Large Programmes using CRIRES and HAWK I will not be accepted in Period 91 e MIDI
38. single person the Principal Investigator or PI must be assigned to be responsible for the programme The PI will also act as the official contact between ESO and the proposers for all later correspondence Phase 2 information data distribution etc By submitting a proposal the PI takes full responsibility for its contents in particular with regard to the names of Cols and the agreement to follow the ESO policies and regulations including the conditions specified in the present Call for Proposals Following the introduction of the ESO User Portal PIs identify themselves uniquely in Phase 1 proposals by their User Portal username Note that each individual is allowed to have only one account in the User Portal database multiple accounts must not be created Failure to comply with this restriction may lead to the rejection by ESO of the proposals by the offending PI All valid proposals received by ESO prior to the submission deadline will be reviewed by the OPC who will rank them according to the scientific merit of the proposal and the importance of its contribution to the advancement of scientific knowledge Furthermore proposals should provide evidence that the proposing individual or team have the expertise and sufficient resources to carry out the analysis Proposals should be self contained The evaluation will be based solely on their contents to the exclusion of external references For non member state proposals Section 11 8 the
39. template Proposers must upload the DDT ESOFORM template and submit their DDT proposals by registering and logging into the ESO User Portal You can find more details at http www eso org sci observing proposals esoform html DDT proposals are reviewed at ESO and approved by the Director General Urgent requests must be clearly identified in Box 5 Special Remarks of the application form Please note Within one month following the delivery of the data the PI of an accepted DDT proposal must submit a report on the achieved science to opo eso org 11 7 Host State Proposals Qualifying proposals whose PI is affiliated with an institute of the Host State Chile are counted as Host State Proposals The designation as Host State Proposal is independent of the fraction of non member state Col s 11 8 Non Member State Proposals A Non Member State Proposal is a proposal where 2 3 or more of the proposers are not affiliated to ESO member state institutes independently of the nationality of the proposers and of the affiliation of the PI Non member state proposals are submitted in the usual way but a separate set of criteria are used for the review of such proposals Section 13 1 This non member state policy does not apply to the host state Chile whose participation is regulated by the Interpretative Supplementary and Amending Agreement to the 1963 Convention Sects 11 7 and 13 1 12 Observing Modes In Period 90 most VLT and
40. the hardware windowed Aladdin array Table 6 ISAAC Period 90 offered imaging modes Instrument Mode Scale FOV Magnitude limits pixel arcsec SW Imaging 0 148 152 x 152 J 24 H 23 Ks 22 SW Polarimetry 0 148 3 x 20 x 1508 J 23 H 22 Ks 21 LW Imaging 0 071 73 x 73 L 16 M_NB amp 13 LW Imaging 3 21 3 28 ym 0 148 152 x 152 L 16 LW FastPhot JHK 0 148 4 7 x 4 7 to 152 x 152 1 For both the Hawaii and Aladdin arrays 2 In polarimetry the FOV consists of three non overlapping strips each of 20 x 150 The magnitude limits c f Table 7 are the J 1 25 ym H 1 65 wm Ks 2 2 ym and L 3 8 um background limited magnitudes for a flat spectrum point source that would result in a S N of 5 in one hour of integration under typical background conditions and a seeing FWHM of 0765 In addition to the standard J H Ks and L broadband filters ISAAC is equipped with a wide selection of narrow band typically AA A 0 015 filters It is not possible to observe using ISAAC with user supplied filters The magnitude limits given in Table 7 are the short wavelength SW and long wavelength LW magnitudes of a flat spectrum point source that would result in a S N of 5 per resolution element in the continuum in one hour of integration under typical background conditions a seeing FWHM of 0 65 and using a 170 slit Limits on IR spectroscopic capabilities vary strongly with wavelength due to the absorption em
41. the lunar illumination FLI 1 0 at Phase 2 By definition moon illumination equals 0 when the moon is below the local horizon Lunar illumination does not have a noticeable influence on the feasibility of infrared observations However the UT active optics can be adversely affected by the proximity of the bright moon to the science target requiring a moon minimum angular distance of 30 Similar restrictions affect observations using the Auxiliary Telescopes see Section 4 2 4 Observers must therefore pay attention to the moon distance to the target while planning their observations e Precipitable Water Vapour PWV PWV constraints must be specified for the following in struments PWV constraints must be specified for CRIRES using the Target macro in the proposal form For all observations with APEX instruments the seeing and moon illumination conditions are not relevant They require an acceptable upper limit of the PWV to be specified in mm using the Target macro in the proposal form Please note that observing conditions requested at Phase 1 cannot be altered at Phase 2 see Section 13 5 for more detail 3 3 Proposal Submission Proposals must be submitted in their final version by the submission deadline 29 March 2012 12 00 noon Central European Summer Time This is done via a web upload procedure that can only be accessed by logging into the ESO User Portal at http www eso org UserPortal
42. the preparation of proposals An observing programme as described in a single proposal may consist of several runs e g for observations with different instruments or to be executed in different observing modes or at different epochs Proposals for Visitor Mode observations Section 12 1 must request time in nights proposals for Service Mode observations Section 12 2 must request time in hours Note that any given proposal may request a mix of Visitor Service Mode observations provided that they are split into separate runs e Please note All proposers Service and Visitor Mode must include time for all overheads telescope instrument in their proposals see Section 9 and Table 18 11 1 Normal Programmes Most of the observing time on ESO telescopes will be allocated to Normal Programmes in Period 90 Proposers must use the standard TAT X template Section 3 1 The scientific case of the programme may take up to two pages including attachments figures or tables The scientific description contains two sections A Scientific Rationale B Immediate Objective Attachments are optional The respective fraction of the above mentioned two pages occupied by the scientific description and by the attachments is left to the discretion of the proposers but attachments are restricted to the second of these pages If the proposal contains runs requesting La Silla telescopes and instruments the duration of each such run must be at least 3
43. time needed to execute this calibration is charged to the programme 6 8 4 Exposure Time Calculator The users are requested to use the ETC http www eso org observing etc in order to test the feasibility of their programme and estimate the corresponding execution time The corresponding observing overheads are given in Table 18 For more details please consult the VISIR User Manual available at http www eso org instruments visir doc 6 9 HAWK I High Acuity Wide field K band Imager HAWK 1 is a near infrared 0 85 2 5 um wide field imager installed at the Nasmyth A focus of UT4 The instrument is cryogenic 120K detectors at 80K and has a fully reflective design The light passes four mirrors and two filter wheels before hitting a mosaic of four Hawaii 2RG 2048x2048 pixels detectors The final f ratio is f 4 36 1 on the sky corresponds to 169 um on the detector As of Period 83 proposers can request the Rapid Response Mode RRM to trigger HAWK I observations For details on RRM policies please see Section 11 3 1 Important note Due to possible future changes Large Programmes using HAWK I will not be accepted in Period 90 Online information on HAWK I can be found via the instrument web page 6 9 1 Filters and field of view HAWK 1 is offered with 10 observing filters placed in two filter wheels Y J H Ks with transmission curves identical to the VIRCAM filters as well as 6 narrow band filters Bry CH4
44. to implement data reduction pipelines for the most commonly used VLT VLTI instrument modes These data reduction pipelines serve three main purposes e Data quality control Pipelines are used to produce the quantitative information necessary to monitor instrument performance see Section 10 4 e Master calibration product creation Pipelines are used to produce master calibration products e g combined bias frames super flats wavelength dispersion solutions e Science product creation Pipelines can be run on the user s desktop in order to fine tune the reduction to specific science needs For this purpose the algorithmic part of the VLT VLTI pipelines pipeline recipes are available and can be downloaded with the front end applications esoRex Gasgano and Reflex from http www eso org pipelines A brief summary of current and anticipated VLT VLTI pipeline availability and functionality for each instrument is available online from http www eso org qc pipeline status html Available pipelines are installed on Paranal and La Silla and normally run automatically at all times These online pipelines use standard but typically not the most recent archival master calibration data to produce quick look quality control information for the observatory staff as well as quick look science products for supported instrument configurations These science products are available to Visitor Mode observers for review and use With the
45. to support the determination of photometric redshifts of distant objects We summarise the performance of WFI in Table 1 The table should only be used as a quick guide of feasibility Table 1 WFI limiting magnitudes Filter Limiting magnitude S N 5 U 23 8 B 26 0 V 25 5 R 25 3 I 24 3 The limiting magnitudes correspond to a one hour integration with dark sky clear conditions a seeing FWHM of 078 and an airmass of 1 2 and have been calculated for a point source of zero colour AOV star To estimate the operational overheads of your proposed observations please consult Chapter 5 1 of the WFI handbook Note that for dithering offsets larger than 150 the overhead increases by 1 minute per offset These extra overheads must be properly accounted for Up to date information and documentation on the instrument can be found via the WFI web page 6 Scientific Instruments Paranal 6 1 CRIRES Cryogenic high resolution IR Echelle Spectrograph CRIRES is the infrared 0 95 wm 5 4 um high resolution spectrograph located at the Nasmyth A focus of UT1 It provides long slit 39 spectroscopy with a spatial sampling of 0 1 Spatial resolution and signal to noise ratio can be maximized by the optional use of a MACAO adaptive optics system equipped with an optical R band wavefront sensor Good correction is obtained with stars as faint as R 14 mag under average seeing conditions while moderate image quali
46. units at the end of Period 88 This new grism is expected to have twice the throughput than the one currently in use but with a lower spectral resolution R 1470 at 500 nm Details on the scope of the upgrade project expected performance validity of pre imaging observations and availability of the instrument are given in the News section of the VIMOS web pages e Due to existing commitments no Large Programmes using VIMOS can be submitted in Period 90 VIMOS is equipped with an integral field unit IFU with 6400 microlenses coupled to fibres and a choice of two spatial samplings magnifications 0 67 per fibre or 0 33 per fibre With the lower spectral resolution settings the FOV of the IFU is 54 x54 using the 0 67 magnification or 27 x27 using the 0 33 magnification A quarter of these fields are covered at intermediate to higher spectral resolutions The VIMOS instrument works in the wavelength range 360 1000 nm VIMOS modes IMG MOS and IFU are summarised in Table 8 Users should refer to the detailed information available on the VIMOS web page to assess the feasibility of their programme with VIMOS All instrument modes and settings are offered both in Visitor Mode and Service Mode except for pre imaging runs which are carried out in Service Mode only The magnitude limits in Table 9 correspond to a one hour integration with dark sky clear conditions a seeing of 0 8 and an airmass of 1 2 for a
47. wheel of the NIR arm in July 2011 One of these new slits replaced the 1 5 slit which is therefore not offered anymore These new slits allow for a reduction of the overall background by a factor of 3 to 4 in the H and J bands UT3 Melipal ISAAC is expected to be decommissioned during Period 90 to allow the installa tion of the second generation instrument SPHERE on U T3 Proposals should take this limited availability of ISAAC into account In particular Large Programmes using ISAAC will not be accepted The decommissioning is subject to SPHERE maintaining its current schedule x VIMOS The last phase of the VIMOS upgrade project will take place at the end of Period 88 with i the replacement of the HR_blue grism for a new high throughput VPH grism This new HR_blue grism is expected to provide a throughput at least twice as large as the current grism but with a slightly reduced resolution of R 1470 at 500 nm for a 1 slit width ii the refurbishment of the focusing units Please consult the VIMOS web page for the latest news on the upgrade VIMOS is not available for Large Programmes in Period 90 due to existing com mitments x VISIR is undergoing an upgrade during Period 89 currently scheduled to take place between May and September 2012 which includes a recommissioning and a performance validation phase The aim of this upgrade is to optimize its perfor mance and enhance its scientific output Details ar
48. 0 of the requested Strehl ratio will not be repeated assuming that other constraints are suitably met VLTI OBs executed marginally outside the specified LST intervals by no more than 30 min will not be scheduled for re execution e Programmes with linked time requirements SM is also intended to support programmes with special timing requirements However proposers planning such programmes should keep in mind that at most 60 of both bright and dark time is allocated to SM on Paranal and that observing conditions cannot be predicted when a time series is started This means that timing sequences that are extremely long and or complex timing links that are very restrictive and time series for observations requiring excellent observing conditions are unlikely to be successfully completed Therefore all such proposals are reviewed for technical feasibility and 69 may be rejected if judged to be too complex Proposers for programmes requiring timing links are strongly encouraged to consider how they may simplify their timing sequences as much as possible as this will minimize the risk that the observations are deemed unfeasible If a given OB cannot be executed within its intended observability window it will be re moved from the observing queue and will not be attempted again If it was part of a time linked series then the time series observation will continue with the next OB if appropriate ESO will not restart a sequence of linked o
49. 17 8 H 18 7 K 18 3 H K 19 2 These values were calculated for a visual seeing of 0 8 which would provide infrared seeing values of 0 67 0 63 0 59 and 0 61 at the central wavelength of the J H K and H K gratings respectively For the closed loop adaptive optics observations with natural guide stars NGS we have assumed a guide star at a distance of 10 with a photometric brightness of R 12 and B R 1 5 magnitudes We encourage the use of the exposure time calculator for more detailed estimates http www eso org observing etc 6 11 2 Brightness Limits To avoid saturation of the detector and detector persistence which affects subsequent observations of faint sources no objects with J H K magnitudes lt 6 mag must be visible in a field of view of 15 around the AO guide star and or the science target However if fast_acquisition is used the limits are brighter by 1 and 2 magnitudes for 0 1 pix and 0025 pix respectively To exclude any risk of artefacts produced by detector persistence in all templates DITs must always be selected such that intensities are at most 8000 for K 7000 for H and H K and 6000 for J ADUs DIT over the entire spectrum 6 11 3 Sky Subtraction The user should note that sky offset fields are mandatory for observations in the 25 and 100 mas scales The corresponding overheads have to be taken into account when estimating the required time for a
50. 2012 to December 17 2012 MPG time from December 17 2012 to December 31 2012 ESO time from December 31 2012 to January 28 2013 MPG time from January 28 2013 to February 19 2013 ESO time from February 19 2013 to March 18 2013 MPG time from March 18 2013 to April 1 2013 ESO time These dates may be subject to minor changes One night per month during the ESO time slots will be reserved for scheduled technical activi ties and execution of the calibration plan In Period 90 ESO will be allocating approximately 67 nights for execution of scientific programmes on the 2 2 m telescope the corresponding runs will be scheduled exclusively during the ESO time slots Of these 67 nights up to 18 will be allocated to Chilean proposals Sects 11 7 amp 13 1 During ESO time Visitor Mode runs may be interrupted for target of opportunity observations of Gamma Ray Bursts and X ray transient afterglows with the GROND instrument of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics up to 15 of the time allocation of each run may have to be given away to such observations A compensation buffer of 10 nights is included in the ESO 67 nights of science time ESO users whose programmes are affected by GROND interruptions are therefore not entitled to any additional compensation FEROS and WF are permanently mounted on the telescope 4 2 Paranal 4 2 1 The VLT Unit Telescopes UTs The VLT consists of four Unit Telescopes UTs From a user
51. 20secs the rows of the CCD are rapidly shifted 50 microsec causing the exposed region to be moved into the storage area the unexposed region of the CCD and a new region to be illuminated This shift and wait scheme continues until the first pair of spectra taken reach the limit of the storage region and the CCD is subsequently read out in the normal way allowing 41 pairs of spectra per CCD readout We summarise the operational modes and performance of FORS2 in the two tables below These tables are only intended to be quick feasibility guides Proposers should refer to the detailed infor mation e g Users Manual Exposure Time Calculator available via the FORS web page The magnitude limits in Table 2 correspond to a one hour integration with dark sky clear conditions a seeing FWHM of 078 and an airmass of 1 2 and have been calculated for a point source of zero colour AOV star The U B and V magnitude limits are calculated using the high throughput 29 Table 2 Offered FORS2 imaging modes for Period 90 Instrument Mode Magnitude limit S N 5 Direct Imaging MIT U 24 8 B 27 3 V 27 1 R 26 7 I 25 7 z 24 7 Direct Imaging E2V U 25 9 B 27 6 V 27 3 R 26 7 1 25 7 HIT Imaging MIT U 16 0 B 19 5 V 20 0 R 20 3 I 19 5 filters The values are shown for both the standard MIT detector mosaic as well as the E2V mosaic which is available for Visitor Mode observations Table 3 Offered
52. 90 to new programmes requiring the use of the LGS Accordingly proposers are encouraged to carry out a critical assessment of the need for LGS for execution of their observations and to carefully study the possibility of using a Natural Guide Star NGS x HAWK I Large Programmes using HAWK I will not be accepted in Period 90 x NACO NACO will be taken out of operations for 6 weeks including November 2012 to allow a partial refurbishment of some critical functions NACO will likely be removed from the UT4 Nasmyth B platform in the course of 2013 to allow for the installation of MUSE Large Programmes using NACO will not be accepted SDI 4 is no longer offered Owing to the fix of the PSF drift problem in pupil tracking mode pupil track ing mode is also offered in SM with focal plane coronographic masks Lyot and 4QPM All programmes requiring special calibrations must request VM Chopping remains unavailable users should use the L or NB_4 05 filters without chopping instead The IB_4 05 filter is not offered VLITI VLTI ATs New baselines are offered starting from Period 90 see the VLTI baseline page x AMBER AMBER can be operated in self coherencing mode which significantly improves the quality of data when FINITO cannot be used for fringe tracking This possibility is only offered in visitor mode Check the AMBER Users Manual for details x MIDI A correlated flux mode is offered in Visit
53. FONT ifs_cal_GenericOffset that allows one to take the PSF calibrations data within the same OB as the science data please see the SINFONI User Manual for details For the observation of the PSF calibrator sufficient time must be requested in the proposal The fast_acquisition template must be used only in case of acquisition of bright targets which would saturate the detector in closed loop with the large scale Excellent astrometry is required for this acquisition mode As of Period 87 proposers can request the Rapid Response Mode RRM to trigger SINFONI observations This mode is offered with the NGS and noAO modes of SINFONI For details on RRM policies please see Section 11 3 1 Pre Imaging runs can also be proposed with SINFONI Such observations are typically dedicated to test the feasibility of a specific science programme e g faint target difficult acquisition Further details can be found on the SINFONT instrument web pages 45 6 11 1 Instrument Performance Table 14 gives the limiting magnitudes S N of 5 for continuum sources integrated over the typical size of the point spread function in one hour of integration time Table 14 SINFONI fields of view and limiting magnitudes Field of View Spatial Scale Mode Limiting Magnitudes continuum 8 x 8 125 x 250mas noAO J 20 2 H 19 9 K 17 9 H K 19 6 3 x 3 50 x 100mas NGS J 19 4 H 19 6 K 18 8 H K 19 8 0 8 x 0 8 12 5 x 25mas NGS J
54. It is the responsibility of the Visiting Astronomer to obtain all night time and daytime calibration frames required Although ESO staff will execute standard day calibration sequences and make them available to the visitor all afternoon calibrations and sky flat fields must be obtained by the visitor Calibration Programmes Please note that ESO further accepts Calibration Programmes to achieve improved calibration of its instruments see Section 11 5 for details 59 10 3 Data Reduction Pipelines 10 3 1 Data Organization Gasgano and SAFT Gasgano a Java based data file organizer developed and maintained by ESO is made available to the community and can be used to manage and organize the astronomical data observed and produced by all VLT compliant telescopes in a systematic way Gasgano can be retrieved from http www eso org gasgano It is also possible to build Unix shell scripts for data organisation using the Stand Alone FITS Tools SAFT available from http archive eso org saft In particular the dfits and fitsort tools can be used in combination to select groups of related files i e all frames with the same instrument configuration for processing SAFT and in particular the hierarch28 tool can be effectively used to handle ESO HIERARCH keywords e g convert them for use with other packages like IRAF 10 3 2 Pipelines in the ESO Environment In collaboration with the various instrument consortia ESO has undertaken
55. Limiting magnitudes Typical limiting magnitudes of HAWK I S N of 5 on a point source 3600s integration on source under average conditions 0 8 seeing 1 2 airmass are given in Table 10 Table 10 HAWK I limiting magnitude examples Filter Limiting mag Limiting mag Vega AB J 23 9 24 8 H 22 5 23 9 Ks 22 3 24 2 The read out noise is around 5e7 while the dark current of the instrument is around 2 e7 pix s The exposure time calculator should be used for detailed exposure time calculations in partic ular for narrow band filters 6 10 NACO NAOS CONICA NACO provides adaptive optics assisted imaging polarimetry spectroscopy and coronagraphy in the 1 5 ym range and is installed at the Nasmyth B focus of UT4 Important note Large Programme proposals using NACO will not be accepted in Period 90 due to the planned installation of MUSE in the course of 2013 Details of the instrument tools and observing modes can be found through the NACO Web page 6 10 1 Adaptive optics correction with Natural and Laser Guide Stars NAOS the adaptive optics front end has been designed to work with Natural Guide Stars NGS and moderately extended objects It is equipped with one infrared and one visual wavefront sensor For a point like reference source with a visual brightness of V 12 NAOS can provide Strehl ratios as high as 50 on axis in the K band in optimal weather conditions A more realistic value is 40 in goo
56. MBER pipeline If a lower yield rate is accepted an increase of up to 0 5 in the limiting magnitude can be achieved In this case the user should account for additional integration in the same spectral band Section 6 13 5 to obtain more frames The limiting correlated magnitude depends on the AMBER spectral resolution the FINITO tracking mode No Tracking Group Tracking or Fringe Tracking and the seeing conditions The main interest of FINITO Group Tracking at faint magnitudes is to enhance the SNR on the AMBER closure phase but reducing the flux in the H band In order to be observable with FINITO the target should have H magnitude 2 to 5 ATs 1 to 7 UTs Visibility in H gt 15 ATs gt 10 UTs 6 13 4 Calibration strategies AMBER requires frequent calibration on sky using calibrator stars We offer two calibration modes CAL SCI CAL and CAL SCI The first one is the standard mode which should be used in most cases in particular when absolute calibration is required for best accuracy Absolute calibration is required in most programmes but for some programmes wavelength differential quantities provide the astrophysical information In that case CAL SCI or indifferently SCI CAL is sufficient The choice of on sky calibration strategy should be specified in the calibration request section of the proposal The strategy will be reviewed particularly carefully during the technical feasibility Pr
57. O ATs SCI PHOT GRISM 0 44 60 can be used with either the UTs or the ATs For a list of the offered telescope configurations please refer to the VLTI baseline page Starting with Period 88 a correlated flux mode is offered In the MIDI fringe exposures the back ground can be subtracted without residuals because it is fully correlated This is not possible for the photometry and for this reason good fringe data can be obtained for fainter magnitudes than good photometry data The correlated flux mode is suited for observations for which visibilities are not needed 1 e when is intended to compare them to correlated flux observations of the same object at other projected baselines Important note Given the arrival of the second generation VLTI instruments ESO cannot guarantee the availability of MIDI beyond Period 91 Proposals for Large Programme using MIDI beyond Period 91 will not be accepted The main features of MIDI for Period 90 are Interference fringes recorded in dispersed Fourier mode long slow scan with coherencing at 1 Hz rate Spectrograph optics either NaCl PRISM mode R 30 or KRS5 GRISM mode R 230 In correlated flux mode the PRISM is used e Beam combiner optics either HIGH SENS no simultaneous photometric measurement of beams before combination or SCIPHOT simultaneous photometric measurement In correlated flux mode the HIGH_SENS optics is used Limiting u
58. OOTER page for the User Manual and useful tools and XSHOOTER SM rules for any news 6 6 ISAAC Infrared Spectrometer And Array Camera ISAAC is an infrared 1 5 um imager and spectrograph mounted at the Nasmyth A focus of UT3 It has two independent arms one equipped with a 1024x1024 Hawaii array and the other with a 1024x1024 InSb Aladdin array The Hawaii arm is used at short wavelengths 1 2 5 um The Aladdin arm is used predominantly at long wavelengths 3 5 um but is also available for short wavelength imaging with broad band filters Tables 6 amp 7 summarise the operational modes and the performance of ISAAC These tables are only intended to be quick reference guides Proposers should refer to the detailed information available via the ISAAC web pages Important note Due to the planned installation of SPHERE during Period 90 no Large Programme proposals including ISAAC will be accepted During Period 90 the following ISAAC instrument modes are offered in both Visitor Mode and Service Mode short wavelength imaging spectroscopy and polarimetry and LW imaging and spec troscopy Two additional imaging modes are offered with the Aladdin detector Burst mode and FastJitter mode For lunar occultation observations only disappearances can be supported in Service Mode appearances must be in Visitor Mode The Burst and the FastJitter modes are intended for fast relative photometry of the order of a few milliseconds with
59. OmegaCAM OPC OPO P2PP PI PWV QCDP RRM SABOCA SAM SDI SE SHFI SINFONI SIS SM SPHERE VST WEI WES XFFTS XSHOOTER ZEUS 2 Z Spec Narrow Band Natural Guide Star Observation Block Wide Field Imager for the VST at Paranal Observing Programmes Committee Observing Programmes Office formerly VISAS Phase 2 Proposal Preparation software tool Principal Investigator Precipitable Water Vapour Quality Control and Data Processing Group Rapid Response Mode Submillimetre APEX BOlometer CAmera Sample Aperture Mask Simultaneous Differential Imager Seeing Enhancer Swedish Heterodyne Facility Instrument Spectrograph for INtegral Field Observations in the Near Infrared Superconductor Insulator Superconductor Service Mode programme Spectro Polarimetric High contrast Exoplanet REsearch Science and Technology Committee System for Tip tilt Removal with Avalanche Photodiodes Science Verification Short Wavelength in the IR Target of Opportunity User Support Department Unit Telescope 1 Antu Unit Telescope 2 Kueyen Unit Telescope 3 Melipal Unit Telescope 4 Yepun Ultra Violet UV Visual Echelle Spectrograph Visible MultiObject Spectrograph VISTA InfraRed CAMera VLT Imager and Spectrometer for mid Infra Red Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy Very Large Telescope Very Large Telescope Interferometer Visitor Mode programme VLT Survey Telescope Wide Field Imager Wave fr
60. SO time difficult to schedule The re filling of the Helium will generally be done during the afternoon with a shorter re cycling procedure 11 to 12 hours later The exact schedule will be optimised according to the RA pressure on the targets SABOCA also has a liquid Helium cooled cryostat but as the hold time is 48 hours the observations can be scheduled with more flexibility During Period 90 SABOCA is expected to be available only in August and October 2012 All APEX proposals must clearly indicate the requested PWV for their observations in Box 12 of the proposal form Figure 6 gives the statistical distribution of PWV throughout the year For each proposal all observations with the same APEX instrument should be merged into a single run This also accounts for the different receivers of SHFI which should be grouped into a single run Different run ID s should only be used for different instruments or in Large Programme proposals for observations to take place in different periods This restriction is needed to increase the observing efficiency at APEX Proposals requesting time from different APEX partners are required to mention the amount of time requested from MPIfR Sweden or Chile in Box 5 More on APEX including SHFI LABOCA and SABOCA observing time calculators can be found at www apex telescope org 5 Scientific Instruments La Silla 5 1 Sofl Son of ISAAC on the NTT Sofl is the infrared spectro imager moun
61. VES fibres homing the rotator to 0 swapping of the plates and field acquisition For ARGUS fast acquisition Visitor Mode only the overhead is 2 minutes if plate 2 is attached to the telescope 5 Plate configuration takes 20 minutes at most Medusa fibres This does not translate into additional overheads if the running exposure on the other plate is at least 20 minutes long Plate configuration overheads have to be added 56 Table 18 Telescope and Instruments Overheads continued Hardware item Action Time minutes XSHOOTER Target acquisition 3 5 XSHOOTER Telescope offsetting 0 25 XSHOOTER Instrument setup Slit 0 5 XSHOOTER Instrument setup IFU 1 XSHOOTER UVB Read out 1 x 1 Slow Fast 70 19 sec XSHOOTER UVB Read out 1 x 2 Slow Fast 38 12 sec XSHOOTER UVB Read out 2 x 2 Slow Fast 22 8 sec XSHOOTER VIS Read out 1 x 1 Slow Fast 92 24 sec XSHOOTER VIS Read out 1 x 2 Slow Fast 48 14 sec XSHOOTER VIS Read outl 2 x 2 Slow Fast 27 9 sec XSHOOTER NIR Read out per DIT 0 88 sec ISAACE Instrument Setup Imaging 0 5 ISAAC Instrument Setup Spectroscopy incl slit check 7 ISAAC Telescope Offsetting 0 25 ISAAC Target Acquisition 1 4 ISAACHw Read out per DIT imaging 0 07 ISAACAI Read out per DIT imaging without chopping negligible ISAACHw Read out per DIT spectroscopy 0 13 ISAACAI Read out per DIT spectroscopy without chopping negligible ISAACAI Imagi
62. W filters refer to filters with wavelengths shorter than 2 5 um Polarimetry observations are carried out using the retarder plate and the Wollaston_00 J band polarimetry observations are not possible because of the location of the J filter in the same wheel as the Wollaston Coronagraphy can be done in the focal plane with occulting masks of 0 7 and 1 4 in diameter as well as with a semi transparent mask of 0 7 diameter with a transmission of 0 4 0 3 for H band Ks band Starting in P90 the two four quadrant phase 4QPM masks are offered in both Service and Visitor modes One mask is optimised to work at K band 4QPM_K and offers a 13 x 13 FOV while the other one 4QPM_H is optimised for H band observation and has an 8 x 8 FOV Owing to the fix of the drift of the PSF in pupil tracking mode all focal plane coronagraphs Lyot and 4QPM are now offered in SM both in field and pupil tracking modes Since P86 there is a new form of coronagraphy offered on NACO making use of an apodizing phase plate APP in the pupil plane optimised in the 3 5 ym domain As it is operationally equivalent to direct imaging without mask APP imaging is offered in SM and VM As explained by Figure 5 18 of the NACO Users Manual Section 4 6 11 the useful field of view FoV with the L27 camera is about 28 in X but only 8 in Y This limited FoV as well as the non negligible pupil tracking drift in particular close to zen
63. age Guaranteed Time Observers must submit proposals for their GTO time using the Normal Programme templates and by the standard proposal deadline All GTO proposals will be evaluated and ranked together with Normal Programme proposals to provide feedback to the GTO teams on the scientific standing of their GTO programmes In exceptional cases badly ranked GTO proposals may not be scheduled The policies describing the obligations of Guaranteed Time Observers are defined in Appendix 2 of the ESO Council document ESO Cou 996 In general GTO runs must be conducted in Visitor Mode Section 12 1 The only exceptions are those explicitly stated in the contractual agreement between ESO and the corresponding external consortium However ESO may exceptionally transfer some GTO runs from Visitor Mode to Service Mode for operational reasons such as the availability of VLTI baselines or the availability of the LGSF Some GTO programmes require ToO runs see Section 11 3 If this is the case then this should be specified in the ESOFORM package using the ObservingRun macro of the ATEX template The possibility for GTO teams to request ToO observations as part of their guaranteed time is restricted to those cases in which this option is explicitly mentioned in the GTO contract 65 11 5 Proposals for Calibration Programmes ESO operates a large number of complex instruments with many possible configurations and observ ing modes Although th
64. ammes using UT4 with AMBER should take this limited availability of UT4 into account 6 13 1 Spectral Modes and Coverage The following spectral modes are offered the Low Resolution H K bands LR HK Medium Resolution K band MR K High Resolution K band HR K and Medium Resolution H Band MR H For central wavelengths and wavelength coverages for LR HK MR K MR H and HR K see the AMBER web page 6 13 2 Integration times DIT External fringe tracking with FINITO is available on both the UTs and the ATs The use of FINITO allows the entire AMBER detector to be read maximizing simultaneous spectral coverage It also allows the AMBER DITs to be adjusted to yield sufficient signal to noise ratio per frame in the fringes However the DIT has to remain small since even with the help of the fringe tracker interferometric fringes get significantly blurred after integrations lasting seconds Note that medium and high resolution are only offered with external fringe tracking as standard setup If no fringe tracker is used i e faint and or extended objects or airmass too high the integra tion times with AMBER will have to be short to minimise the blurring caused by the atmospheric turbulence In Low Resolution without external fringe tracking the maximum authorized DITs are set to 100ms on the ATs and 50ms on the UTs If absolute visibility measurements is the goal the shortest authorized DITs are recommended see Table 2 in the Template m
65. an 10 degrees Visiting astronomers are requested to check for potential limitations during the preparation of their observations 4 2 5 VISTA The Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy VISTA is a 4 m class wide field survey telescope for the southern hemisphere VISTA is located at ESO s Cerro Paranal Observatory in Chile on its own peak about 1 5km from the four UTs The telescope has an altitude azimuth mount and quasi Ritchey Chr tien optics with a fast f 1 primary mirror giving an f 3 25 focus to the instrument at Cassegrain Shape and position of the mirrors are actively controlled by high and low order curvature wave front sensors WFS located inside the instrument focal plane The low order WFSs are used simultaneously with the scientific observations VISTA is equipped with VIRCAM which is described in Section 6 14 4 2 6 VST The VLT Survey Telescope VST is a 2 6 m wide field survey telescope for the southern hemisphere It is located on the VLT platform on ESO s Cerro Paranal Observatory and is equipped with just one focal plane instrument OmegaCAM which is described in Section 6 15 The telescope has an altitude azimuth mount with a f 5 5 modified Ritchey Chr tien optical layout It contains an actively controlled meniscus primary mirror a hexapod driven secondary mirror and 21 an image analysis system It also contains two interchangeable correctors one is a high throughput two lens corrector whi
66. anual if closure phase and wavelength differential mode are the quantities of interest the maximum recommended DIT should be used As of Period 90 it will be possible only in visitor mode to operate AMBER in self coherencing mode which significantly improves the quality of data when FINITO cannot be used for fringe tracking Check the AMBER Users Manual for details Special Modes Special Programmes may require a different combination of modes and DITs This is the case when using MR or HR without external fringe tracking A shorter DIT strongly reduces the limiting magnitude It also reduces the spectral coverage that can be read Any proposal requiring a non standard DIT should carefully detail the justification and the technical feasibility 48 It will be scheduled in Visitor Mode In Service Mode the AMBER DITs ought to be chosen while preparing the Phase II The AMBER template manual available on the AMBER documentation page provides the recommended DITs for all offered configurations 6 13 3 Limiting magnitudes AMBER and the VLTI have limitations in magnitude V band H band and K band fringe con trast H band and K band airmass and seeing The details of these limitations can be found on the AMBER web page as well as the most updated values on visibility accuracy and closure phase accuracy The limiting magnitudes are estimates on the basis of at least 50 of the frames being successfully processed by the A
67. arch for an appropriate off source position in extended line emitting regions is not included SHFI users wishing to map extended line emitting regions should either provide an appropriate off source position or request additional observing time in the technical justification section to search for such a position The overhead for this amounts to 30 min per field 7 2 LABOCA the Large APEX Bolometer Camera LABOCA is a 295 channel bolometer array operating in the 870 ym atmospheric window with a beam size of 19 2 07 and a total field of view of 11 4 An overview of the instrument is given on the APEX home page www apex telescope org bolometer laboca The following observing patterns will be offered e Spiral mode e Raster map in spiral mode e On The Fly mapping OTF e Point source photometry mode The point source photometry mode consists of single pixel chopping using a sensitive and stable pixel near the optical axis currently pixel 71 As the LABOCA pixels are separated by twice the beam size single pixel chopping improves the on source efficiency from 6 25 in a Nyquist sampled map to 30 in photometry mode The same RMS can thus be reached 4 8 times faster than in mapping mode The recommended wobbler throw and frequency are 50 and 1Hz The recommended nodding time is 30s but can be adapted to the weather conditions The data can be reduced using standard Bolometer Array Analysis Software BoA scripts The
68. are required must be explicitly requested in Box 14 by uncom menting the corresponding instrument configuration line This will ensure smooth operations by flagging the detector change in the schedule The image scale in the default readout mode 2 by 2 binning is 0 125 pixel in the high resolution HR mode and 025 pixel in the standard resolution SR mode The field of view in these two modes is respectively 4 25 x 4 25 and 6 8 x 6 8 note that the detector area is larger than the field 28 of view The different magnifications are chosen by setting one of the two collimators Hence each magnification has to be calibrated independently Unbinned CCD readout modes are only offered for applications that specifically require them the use of unbinned modes must be explicitly requested in the proposal In addition to the standard imaging and longslit spectroscopy modes some of the key capabilities of FORS2 are listed below 6 2 1 Multi object Spectroscopy FORS2 provides two multi object spectroscopy modes The MOS mode comprises 19 movable slitlets of fixed slit lengths between 19 and 21 and user selectable slit widths The MXU mode provides the possibility to insert a mask in the focal plane in which slits of different lengths widths and shapes can be cut with a dedicated laser cutting machine The FIMS tool Section 6 2 6 must be used for Phase 2 preparation of MOS and MXU observations The performance of the MOS and MXU modes ar
69. associated overheads have to be taken into account by the users Pre imaging runs are carried out typically two months in advance of the spectroscopic follow up Masks need to be prepared as soon as possible after the pre imaging has been completed and submitted according to Phase 2 procedures The observations taken as part of a pure imaging run without the pre imaging flag set cannot be used for the subsequent mask preparation due to the lack of the controlled mask to ccd transforma tion keywords in the headers Even in the case when imaging data have been obtained with VIMOS the short pre imaging run is mandatory VIMOS is not equipped with an Atmospheric Dispersion Corrector In order to minimise slit losses MOS observations and their pre imaging are taken at a pre defined position angle on sky with slits oriented N S and the target within 2h of the meridian Special requirements for different field orientations should be clearly stated in the proposals Because of the VIMOS upgrade project at least 3 attached night time flats and one arc are mandatory in all MOS settings The corresponding overheads need to be taken into account at Phase 1 and can be estimated using Table 18 In MOS mode only one filter grism combination per OB is permitted the only filter exchange allowed is the one between acquisition and science template Users who want to observe the same targets with different filter grism combinations are requested to submit separa
70. ator This 65 overhead includes acquisition software setup readout telescope slewing and calibrations skydip pointing focus and flux calibration 7 3 SABOCA the Submillimetre APEX Bolometer Camera SABOCA is a bolometer array operating in the atmospheric window at 350 um 855 GHz SABOCA consists of an array of 39 superconducting TES Transition Edge Sensor thermistors with SQUID Superconducting Quantum Interference Device amplification and multiplexing Of these 37 are arranged in a hexagonal layout consisting of a centre channel and 3 concentric hexagons Two addi tional bolometers identical to the inner 37 but optically not coupled called blind bolometers were added to the layout at two diametral opposite positions for monitoring purposes The bolometers are designed to be operated at a temperature of about 300 mK provided by a cryostat using liquid nitrogen and helium in combination with a close cycle helium 3 sorption cooler The APEX beam size at this wavelength is 7 7 and the total field of view for SABOCA is 90 The array is undersampled on the sky the separation between channels is twice the beam size 15 To obtain fully sampled maps it is necessary to move the array on the sky during observations by scanning in one direction and then stepping in the other or by moving in a circular or spiral pattern in the telescope or astronomical coordinate system The photometry mode can also be used for SABOCA The implem
71. atural guide stars NGS the laser guide star LGS or without guide stars the noAO mode in which case the AO module just acts as relay optics and the spatial resolution is dictated by the natural seeing If more than one of these modes are used in a given programme they should be requested as part of different runs Important notes e To allow for the installation of the Deformable Secondary Mirror UT4 will not be available during part of Period 92 Large Programmes using SINFONI should take this limited avail ability of SINFONI into account e PARSEC the laser currently used by the Laser Guide Star Facility will likely be decom missioned during Period 90 and be replaced by a prototype of the laser to be used by the coming AOF As a consequence no LGS assisted observations will take place during a period of 10 weeks currently scheduled from end of October 2012 to early January 2013 e The Laser Guide Star Facility is expected to be decommissioned during Period 92 to allow for the installation of the Deformable Secondary Mirror on UT4 part of the Adaptive Optics Facility All programmes requiring its use should therefore be completed by then In the NGS mode the star should be brighter than R 11 mag for peak performance However the AO can work and will provide moderate image quality improvement with stars as faint as R 17 mag in excellent seeing conditions The NGS should be as close as possible to the scientific target if no
72. ble and are arranged as shown in Fig 8 The diagram shows the focal plane as it would be seen looking directly down the camera body down the Z axis which on the telescope points towards the sky On the sky in the default instrument rotator position Y corresponds to N and X to West A single integration of length DIT secs or a co added series of these known as an Exposure produces a sparsely sampled image of the sky known as a pawprint The area of sky covered by the pixels of a pawprint is 0 6 deg Full almost uniform sky coverage of a tile of 1 501 deg can be achieved with six pawprints offset by 47 5 in y at two respective x positions offset by 95 of the detector size Any sky position of a tile will fall at least on two of these six pawprints 6 14 3 Instrument performance Table 17 summarizes the instrument performance as established during commissioning The instru ment performance can be further evaluated from the publicly available Science Verification data sets which are available through the VISTA Science Verification web page 50 suun o9 10499420 Science detectors controlled by IRACE Figure 8 VIRCAM focal plane geometry Table 17 VISTA performance pixel scale 0 34 pixel best image quality achieved 0 6 including seeing optics and sampling estimated image quality Paranal seeing convolved with the instrument PSF of 0 51 image distortion lt 15 in the corners photometric
73. bservations if the pre specified timing constraints cannot be fulfilled More details on how version 3 of the Phase 2 Proposal Preparation P2PP tool can be used to time link group or concatenate various OBs are described in http www eso org sci observing phase2 P2PPSurveys html e VLTI A separate run must be specified for each requested baseline configuration e ToO programme execution Successful proposers of ToO runs will have to prepare OBs for their observations well ahead of the beginning of an observing period see Section 12 2 Mostly ToO OBs will have to be dummy OBs with default values for target coordinates integration times etc At the time of occurrence of the predicted event the PI of the programme must activate it and at the same time provide the missing information for completion of the OBs The service observer will update and execute the specified OBs Further details are available on the Phase 2 ToO Procedures page 13 Policy Summary Several policies regarding all aspects of the use of ESO telescopes have been refined over the years by the ESO Observing Programmes Committee OPC and by the Science and Technology Committee STC Here we summarize those policies relevant for ESO proposers for Period 90 For details on individual policies we refer to the VLT VLTI Science Operations Policy document 13 1 Who may submit time allocation policies ESO proposals may be submitted by any group or individual One
74. but without a TTS using the seeing enhancer mode Please note that the TTS can be both fainter and further away from the science target than natural guide stars NGS thus giving users access to a larger fraction of the sky Observations using the Laser Guide Star LGS require more stringent observing conditions than observations using natural guide stars The transparency needs to be clear CLR or photometric the airmass constraints are tighter and the atmosphere must be quiet i e good seeing and a weak or absent jet stream Further note that for operational reasons the LGSF is currently scheduled in blocks of typically one week per month The LGSF is offered with NACO and SINFONT in both Service Mode and Visitor Mode 20 The peak K band Strehl ratio achieved with the LGS in ideal conditions is around 20 This depends on many factors so users are encouraged to use the SINFONI and NACO ETCs The point at which one should consider using the laser instead of a natural guide star can be estimated with the ETCs Although the details depend on the distance of the NGS TTS from the science target the airmass and the vertical profile of the turbulence the magnitude at which one should consider using the laser is around R 13 5 to 14 A programme that requires observations using both an NGS and the LGS should separate these into two distinct runs in the proposal form During Period 90 PARSEC the current laser used by the Laser Guide Star Fa
75. calibration 2 RMS in respect to 2MASS in J H Ks photometric calibration 2 RMS internally astrometric accuracy lt 0 2 with respect to 2MASS sky concentration illumination lt 5 absolute can be corrected down to lt 2 detector 16 Raytheon VIRGO HgCdTe arrays sensitive over 0 84 to 2 5um high quantum efficiency large number of hot pixels some dead areas on detector 1 6 14 4 VISTA Public Surveys and Open Time Proposals VISTA will be dedicated for its first five years of operation primarily to the execution of six public surveys At least 75 of the observing time will be devoted to them For details please refer to the VISTA Public Survey web page As of Period 87 a limited amount of observing time is made available to the community Open time proposals should clearly justify the scientific goals and why they are not achievable through the scheduled public survey observations Only those proposals that have complementary constraints and coordinate ranges with respect to public survey observations may be scheduled as the highest priority is given to advance public surveys on VISTA Any unallocated time will be returned to the public surveys All VISTA observations are carried out in Service Mode Users who plan to propose their own visitor filter set to be used in their science programme have to consider that only one free slot is available in the VIRCAM filter wheel for visitor filter and that the s
76. ce Mode runs these requests and associated justifications must be sub mitted to usd help eso org or to p2pp waiver eso org clear instructions are available at http www eso org sci observing phase2 SM Guidelines WaiverChanges html at least one week before the Phase 2 deadline ESO reserves the right to reject the changes if they are insufficiently justified conflicting with any other approved programmes or imply significant changes in the overall distribution of scheduled targets in the sky Observations of targets for which no authorization has been obtained are not allowed at the telescope 13 4 1 Service Mode run execution The runs to be conducted in Service Mode will be subdivided into the following classes for operational reasons e Class A All possible efforts will be made to execute all OBs corresponding to the runs in the requested observing period Approximately the first half according to the OPC ranking of the total amount of Service Mode time scheduled on each telescope falls in this class 71 e Class B These runs will be executed in the requested observing period on a best effort basis Approximately the second half according to the OPC ranking of the total amount of Service Mode time scheduled on each telescope falls in this class e Class C Filler runs OBs will only be executed if the observing conditions do not permit observations for runs within classes A and B For Class A runs that are not comple
77. ch provides high throughput from the u to the z band the other contains an Atmospheric Dispersion Corrector ADC for observations at lower elevations The throughput of the ADC is very low in the u band However since it has not been demonstrated to improve significantly the image quality in regular operations the ADC is not offered The entrance window of the OmegaCAM cryostat is the final optical element The VST operates from the u to the z band preserving within a corrected field of view of 1 by 1 degree the excellent seeing conditions achievable at the Cerro Paranal site 4 2 7 Paranal meteorological conditions Extensive statistical information on meteorological conditions on Paranal seeing wind water vapour etc can be found on the Paranal Web page Information about general climate and seismic statistics can also be found there Wind statistics at Paranal show that the wind speed is between 12 and 15 m s 10 of the time These conditions allow observations to be made only with the telescope pointing down wind Predominant winds blow from the North 4 3 Chajnantor The Llano de Chajnantor site is located on 67 45 longitude West 23 00 latitude South at 5104m altitude in the Chilean Atacama desert It is a very dry site inhospitable to humans but an excellent site for sub mm astronomy see Fig 6 Water vapour absorbs and attenuates sub mm radiation and thus a dry site is required for high frequency radio astrono
78. chievable by combining red offset and blue offset spectra There are offset slits available with 15mm offsets to the blue and red with the full range of slit widths available for the normal slits These slits can of course be used with any other grism with the wavelength offset depending on the grism dispersion See the web pages for more details Up to 5 MOS plates can be loaded simultaneously They are punched off line so additional plates can be punched at any time To create multi slit masks pre imaging must be acquired using EFOSC2 with the same position angle as for the actual observations typically one day before the spectroscopic observations Therefore NTT observers in La Silla may be asked to give up to 20 minutes of their allocated time for pre imaging observations for subsequent EFOSC2 MOS runs The coronagraphic mode features focal stops of 8 0 and 4 0 and a Lyot pupil mask The polarimetric measurements are performed using either a half wave plate or a quarter wave plate These super achromatic plates can be moved into the optical path and rotated to measure the polarisation at different angles without rotating the whole instrument The plates are housed in separate units and only one unit plate per night can be used Note that since EFOSC2 is 24 mounted at the NTT Nasmyth B focus there is strong instrumental polarisation that varies with telescope pointing Users should allow time for additional observations of unpolari
79. cility will likely be decommissioned It will be replaced by a prototype of the laser used by the coming Adaptive Optics Facility As a consequence the Laser Guide Star Facility LGSF will be taken out of operations for 10 weeks currently scheduled between end of October 2012 to early January 2013 during which no LGS assisted observations can be carried out Provided that the new laser is successfully commissioned both the delivered power and the number of nights during which the LGSF can be used every month will be significantly increased 4 2 4 The ATs VLTI only The VLT Interferometer is complemented by an array of relocatable 1 8 m Auxiliary Telescopes ATs For Period 90 the ATs are offered with MIDI and AMBER The baselines offered for this period are specified at the VLTI baseline page The ATs are equipped with STRAP units which provide tip tilt correction for targets with 1 7 lt V lt 13 5 The distance of the guide star from the science target must be less than 57 5 For observations using the fringe tracker FINITO V lt 13 5 distance lt 15 While observations on AMBER and MIDI are not affected by the moon there are some restrictions due to the guiding of the telescopes e If the FLI is gt 90 guiding is not possible for stars fainter than 9th magnitude if the distance to the moon is lower than 20 degrees e If the FLI is gt 90 guiding is impossible for any star if the distance to the moon is lower th
80. ctrograph for INtegral Field Obs in the NIr UVES UV Visual Echelle Spectrograph VIMOS Visual Multi Object Spectrograph VIRCAM VISTA InfraRed CAMera VISIR VLT Imager and Spectrometer for mid Infra Red XSHOOTER UV Visual NIR medium resolution chelle spectrograph Chajnantor LABOCA Large Apex BOlometer CAmera SABOCA Submillimetre APEX Bolometer CAmera SHFI Swedish Heterodyne Facility Instrument FLASH First Light APEX Submillimeter Heterodyne receiver The main characteristics of all instruments offered at La Silla Paranal and Chajnantor in this call are available in the ESO Instruments Summary Table The ESO proposal submission deadline is 29 March 2012 12 00 noon Central European Summer Time In each submitted proposal one single person the Principal Investigator PI must be identified as being principally responsible for this proposal By submitting a proposal the PI agrees that he she and his her collaborators will act according to ESO s policies and regulations including the conditions specified in the present Call for Proposals if observing time is granted Any question about policies or the practical aspects of proposal preparation should be addressed to the ESO Observing Programmes Office opo eso org Enquiries about technical requirements of the planned observations should be sent to the User Support Department usd help eso org for Paranal and Chajnantor and to lasilla
81. culator Airmass Calculator Digitized Sky Survey can be found at http www eso org sci observing tools html Information on standard stars and sky characteristics as well as additional tools are available at http www eso org sci facilities paranal sciops tools html The parameters used by the ETCs are based on data collected during instrument commissioning and operations The ETC parameters are frequently updated and changes will be reflected by the running version number To help the observatory staff assess the technical feasibility of observations proposers are requested to specify the version number of the ETC they used in the section 9 Justification of requested observing time and observing conditions of their proposals Please check the ESO web pages for the ETC version to be used in Period 90 Please note that while the sky background values used in the ETCs generally reflect actual conditions on Paranal they do not account for local effects such as the zodiacal light Proposers of VLTI observations should check the feasibility of their proposed observations with the visibility calculator viscalc available from the ETC page At Phase 2 users are also encouraged to select a suitable calibrator star for their planned observations using the CalVin tool available also from http www eso org observing etc Service Mode proposers are reminded see Section 13 5 that the requested observing conditions
82. d conditions It can provide partial correction for targets as faint as V 17 Users should use the preparation software and the NACO ETC for the preparation of their proposals NAOS can also be used with the LGS LGS mode see Section 4 2 3 for additional details Two modes are possible e with a tip tilt star TTS of V magnitude in the range 12 18 and with a maximum angular separation of 55 from the science target However the performance of the adaptive optics Al correction decreases with increasing angular separation from the science targets Finally the choice of the TTS imposes some constraints on the field orientation The name of the TTS must be specified in the target list of the Phase 1 proposal using the ESOFORM proposal template e without a tip tilt star also called seeing enhancer mode The name of the TTS must be left blank in the target list of the Phase 1 proposal It is compulsory to provide the magnitude of the star and the bandpass in which the magnitude is given for both NGS and LGS with TTS Observations in LGS mode require either clear CLR or photometric PHO conditions the transparency constraint must be set accordingly in the proposal In addition LGS without TTS seeing enhancer mode must require seeing conditions better than 0 8 Separate runs should be specified in the proposal form for observations using a NGS on the one hand and for LGS observations on the other hand The LGS mode of NACO
83. d for execution upon receipt of an activation trigger by ESO the target and observing time information will be inserted by the observatory support staff into generic Observation Blocks OBs submitted by the PI at Phase 2 Targets that are unknown at Phase 1 proposal submission time but can be observed more than one week after they have been identified should be observed as part of normal non ToO runs The related OBs should be defined or updated by the PI once the target is known The OBs should be stored in the ESO database with the complete information needed to allow them to be executed as part of the regular Service Mode queues Note that users submitting a ToO programme will need to indicate the number of targets per run and the requested number of triggers per target using the appropriate macros in the 4 TX template A trigger is defined as the request for execution of one Observation Block with a given instrument at a given epoch Similar observations to be executed with the same instrument at different epochs count as different triggers as do observations with different instruments at the same epoch Any observing request by other groups at the time an event occurs e g a DDT proposal with exactly the same scientific goal and aiming at observing the same object will be rejected by ESO ToO programmes are not carried over to the following periods ToO proposers should bear in mind that ToO proposals are ranked across OPC categories by t
84. e new 0 33 fibre 13 x 13 370 552 1830 0 76 1 IFU HR Orange 0 67 fibre 27 x 27 525 740 2650 0 6 1 IFU HR Red 0 67 fibre 27 x 27 640 860 3100 0 6 1 IFU LR Blue 0 33 fibre 27 x 97 390 670 220 5 3 4 IFU LR Red 0 33 fibre 27 x 27 580 915 260 7 3 4 IFU MR 0 33 fibre 13 x 13 490 1015 720 2 5 1 IFU HR Blue old 0 33 fibre 13 x 13 415 620 2550 0 5 1 IFU HR Blue new 0 33 fibre 13 x 13 370 552 1830 0 76 1 IFU HR Orange 0 33 fibre 13 x 13 525 740 2650 0 6 1 IFU HR Red 0 33 fibre 13 x 13 640 860 3100 0 6 1 1 In MOS mode with the LR and MR settings the actual spectral range depends also on the order sepa ation filter used with the HR settings the actual spectral coverage depends also on the position of the slit in the field of view 2 This is the resolution given by a slit with width 1 in MOS mode and by 1 fibre in IFU mode This is the number of slitlets that can be accommodated along the dispersion direction 3 4 This grism is not available anymore Values are given for reference only 5 New VPH HR_blue grism still to be characterized at the instrument UV cutoff to be confirmed We summarise some important requirements for OB preparation below that must be taken into account during Phase 1 6 7 1 VIMOS Observation Requirements IMG Offsets greater than 30 are not allowed during OB execution as they ofte
85. e Observatory executes a rigorous calibration plan for each instrument ESO does not have the resources to fully calibrate all potential capabilities of all instruments On the other hand the astronomical community has expressed interest to perform calibrations for certain uncalibrated or poorly calibrated modes or to develop specialized software for certain calibration and data reduction tasks ESO introduced the Calibration Programmes in order to allow users to complement the existing calibration of ESO instruments and to fill gaps in the calibration coverage that might exist Up to 3 of all the available observing time may be made available for calibration proposals Calibration Programmes will be evaluated by the OPC with a view to balancing the added calibra tion value for future science with the more immediate return of the regular science proposals of the current period Calibration Programmes are reviewed by ESO with regards to their technical and operational feasibility Successful proposers will be required to deliver documentation and data products and software to ESO to support future observing programmes The raw calibration data as well as the advanced calibration products that are obtained as part of Calibration Programmes are non proprietary and made available to the entire community through the ESO archive and the respective instrument Web pages Scientific publications that make use of the data or results of Calibration Programmes
86. e equivalent cf Table 3 Both modes are only offered with the standard resolution collimator 6 2 2 High throughput filters A set of high throughput filters are used on FORS2 to maximize the sensitivity below 600 nm 6 2 3 Volume phased holographic grisms In addition to the standard low resolution grisms a number of high throughput VPH grisms are available which are optimised for both the MIT and E2V detectors 6 2 4 Polarimetry FORS2 is capable of measuring both linear and circular polarisation for direct imaging and spec troscopy It uses a Wollaston prism as the beam splitting analyser and two superachromatic phase retarder plate mosaics located in the parallel beam 6 2 5 Imaging modes and performance summary The High Time resolution HIT mode is available with FORS2 currently only with the MIT detector in imaging Visitor and Service Modes and spectroscopy Visitor Mode only with a range of filters for imaging and the 600B and 3001 grisms for spectroscopy In the one shift mode the times for a full shift across the mosaic are 1 4 16 64 256 sec providing time resolutions for 1 on sky from 2 3 msec to 0 6sec The multiple shift MS mode is predomi nantly implemented for fast spectroscopy and allows a block of rows to be shifted together In MS mode two user defined slits can be used these place the spectra of the target and a comparison star onto a small region of the CCD After a pre defined wait time 0 1
87. e fibre positioner and consists of a rectangular array of 22 x 14 microlenses Two magnification scales are available 1 1 with a sampling of 0 52 microlens and a total aperture of 1175x773 and 1 1 67 with 073 microlens and a total aperture of 66x42 In addition 15 ARGUS sky fibres can be positioned in the 25 field GIRAFFE is equipped with one 2kx4k EEV CCD 15 ym pixels with a scale of 0 3 pixel in MEDUSA IFUs and ARGUS direct mode and a scale of 0 15 pixel in the enlarged ARGUS mode GIRAFFE is operated with 39 fixed setups 31 high resolution 8 low resolution modes The standard readout mode of FLAMES GIRAFFE is 225 kHz unbinned which ensures low read out noise A high speed readout mode 625 kHz unbinned low gain with increased readout noise but less overheads is offered in Visitor Mode only No pipeline support is available for this mode UVES is the high resolution spectrograph at UT2 of the VLT see Section 6 4 It was designed to work in long slit mode but it has been possible to add a fibre mode 6 to 8 fibres depending on setup and or mode fed by the FLAMES positioner to its Red Arm only Only three of the standard UVES Red setups are offered with central wavelengths of 520 580 and 860 nm respectively see the UVES Users Manual for details The standard readout mode of FLAMES UVES is 225kHz unbinned which ensures low readout noise A high speed readout mode 625 kHz unbinned low gain with increased
88. e improved stability of the system caused by the installation of fixed slits the calibration frequency will be decreased 6 1 2 Sensitivity Proposers should refer to the Exposure Time Calculator at http www eso org observing etc to assess the feasibility of their programmes In particular starting from Period 90 the amount of re cipitable water vapour will be user definable constraint which can be set during Phase 2 preparation for SM users Detailed information regarding CRIRES is provided in the Users Manual available via the CRIRES web page 6 2 FORS2 Focal Reducer low dispersion Spectrograph 2 FORS2 is a multi mode optical instrument placed at the UT1 Cassegrain focus It is capable of imaging polarimetry long slit and multi object spectroscopy It has two detector systems and a wide range of exchangeable optical elements The default MIT detector consists of a mosaic of two 2kx4k MIT CCDs 15 ym pixels and is available for Service and Visitor Mode observations A blue optimized e2v mosaic is available only for Visitor Mode observations Compared to the e2v detector the MIT mosaic provides greatly improved red sensitivity gt 750nm with very low fringing However the response of the MIT detector below 600 nm is reduced The detector systems are not mounted at the same time hence the use of the e2v detector is limited to Visitor Mode and must be justified in the Phase 1 proposal Whether the MIT or e2v detector
89. e is available on VISTA these observations are carried out in Service Mode only and for restricted Right Ascension ranges Open time proposals should clearly justify the scientific goals and why they are not achievable through the scheduled public survey observations Only those proposals that have complementary constraints and coordinate ranges with respect to public survey observations may be scheduled as the highest priority is given to advance public surveys on VISTA For details please refer to Section 6 14 and the instrument web pages http www eso org sci facilities paranal instruments vircam At least 75 of the science time will be devoted to the execution of the ongoing Public Surveys Proposals for Large Programmes will not be accepted for this telescope e La Silla HARPS x A Fabry Perot Calibration System FPCS is available as an alternative calibration source for simultaneous drift measurements The Fabry Perot etalon is illuminated by a super continuum laser source providing a uniform density of lines and a relatively flat spectrum over the HARPS wavelength range In the FPCS case no contamination is seen due to the strong Ar lines the photon noise is half of that measured in the ThAr lamp i e 4 cm s71 while the stability within one night is better than 10 cm s7 Programmes that require very high precision and for which contamination of the stellar spectra by ThAr should be avoided might benefit from the
90. e made available on the ESO VISIR web page VISIR will likely be available for the entire Period 90 It is expected that VISIR users will be able to set constraints on the Precipitable Water Vapour during their Phase 2 preparation UT4 Yepun VLT Laser Guide Star PARSEC the current laser used by the Laser Guide Star Facility will likely be decommissioned during Period 90 It will be replaced by a prototype of the laser used by the coming Adaptive Optics Facility As a consequence the Laser Guide Star Facility LGSF will be taken out of operations for 10 weeks currently scheduled between end of October 2012 to early January 2013 during which no LGS assisted observations can be carried out Provided that the new laser is successfully commissioned both the delivered power and the number of nights during which the LGSF can be used every month will be significantly increased The experience acquired by ESO with the Laser Guide Star LGS shows that it can be used for up to 15 of the UT4 science time due to the restrictions placed by the required sky conditions and due to intrinsic LGS operational constraints The LGS is offered with NACO and SINFONT in Service Mode SM and Visitor Mode VM Taking into account the existing commitments for this facility in particular for ongoing Large Programmes and for Guaranteed Time Observations it is expected that only a very limited amount of time 6 nights can be allocated in Period
91. e per positioner plate up to 132 separate objects including sky fibres are accessible in MEDUSA single fibre mode each with an aperture of 12 on the sky e Two IFU slits each IFU deployable Integral Field Unit consists of a rectangular array of 20 microlenses of 0 52 each giving an aperture of 2x3 For each plate there are 15 IFU units dedicated to objects and another 15 dedicated to sky measurements In the latter only the central fibre is present Table 4 FLAMES Observational Capabilities 31 Spectro Mode N Objects Aperture R Cover Comments UVES6 8 RED 6 or 8 with sky 1 0 47000 200 6 fib 520nm UVES7 1 RED 7 with sky 1 0 47000 200 Sim Calib GIRAF HR MEDUSA 131 with sky 1 2 21000 A 22 X 12 GIRAF LR MEDUSA 131 with sky 1 2 7000 7 5 GIRAF HR IFU 15 15 sky 2x3 32000 A 22 X 12 GIRAF LR IFU 15 15 sky 2x3 11000 7 5 GIRAF HR ARGUS 1 11 5x7 3 32000 A 22 X 12 or 6 6x4 2 GIRAF LR ARGUS 1 11 5x7 3 11000 A 7 5 or 6 64 2 1 The resolving powers R given here are only average values for more details see http www eso org sci facilities paranal instruments flames doc which contains a description of all the GIRAFFE setups 2 The number of allocable buttons is 132 but only 131 spectra are fully covered on the detector e One ARGUS slit the large integral field unit ARGUS is mounted at the centre of one plate of th
92. e proposal either by observing different targets or by using different instrument modes or different constraints may be allowed only under exceptional circumstances and after approval by ESO see Section 13 5 e Paranal Observing mode on the VLT Departures from the observing mode requested by the proposers may be implemented by ESO so as to achieve a balanced distribution between Service Mode and Visitor Mode As arule proposers should request Service Mode only for observations that demonstrably benefit from the short term scheduling flexibility allowed by this mode Proposers may identify runs that lend themselves for observations in either Service or Visitor Mode by specifying one of the modes using the alternative run feature in Box 3 of the ESOFORM Phase 1 proposal form Please note that if a certain instrument mode is offered exclusively in either Service Mode or Visitor Mode then this overrides the scheduling considerations outlined above Service Mode OBs Service Mode Observation Blocks OBs including all overheads can last up to a maximum of 1 hour Longer OBs have to be specifically requested and justified at Phase 2 via a waiver request which is evaluated by the Observatory Pre imaging for VLT instruments and modes for which pre imaging is required a separate pre imaging run must be specified in the proposal to be executed in Service Mode Failure to do so will result in the deduction of the time necessary for the
93. e right to reject any submitted proposals that do not conform to these requirements The VST OmegaCAM system is designed to critically sample the best seeing at Paranal over a wide field the VST provides a 1 degree unvignetted field of view which OmegaCAM samples with a 32 CCD 16k x 16k detector mosaic at 0 21 arcsec per pixel The CCDs are thinned blue sensitive 3 edge buttable CCD44 82 e2v devices of high cosmetic quality Image quality is specified such that in the absence of seeing 80 of the energy from a point source should fall within a 2x2 pixel area over the full field The field distortion is very low so that the image scale is virtually constant over the whole field There are narrow gaps between the CCDs the overall geometric filling factor of the array is 91 In addition to the 32 CCDs making up the science array OmegaCAM also contains four auxiliary CCDs around the edges of the field Two of these are used for autoguiding so that both field position and rotation can be tracked accurately The other two auxiliary CCDs are mounted 2mm outside the focal plane one in front one behind and are used for recording defocused star images for curvature wavefront sensing and controlling the active optics system of the VST OmegaCAM contains a 12 filter exchange mechanism Currently the available filters include the Sloan ugriz set Johnson B and V filters several narrow band filter mosaics a Stromgren v filter and a special calibratio
94. e stress At the end of the submission procedure an acknowledgment page is displayed Please print it as a re ceipt The PI of the proposal and the submitter will also receive later a confirmation ticket via email but the acknowledgment page is the official receipt If you are not sure if your proposal has successfully entered the system do not re submit it but rather contact ESO at esoform eso org Neither proposals nor corrections to proposals that are submitted after the deadline will be consid ered 17 Part II ESO Telescopes and their Instrumentation 4 The Observatory 4 1 La Silla The La Silla Observatory site is located at 70 43 longitude West 29 15 latitude South at an altitude of 2375m The telescopes operated by ESO are the New Technology Telescope NTT the ESO 3 6 m telescope and the ESO MPG 2 2 m telescope Proposals for observations with these three telescopes are restricted to Visitor Mode runs Each run must have a minimum duration of 3 nights This restriction does not apply to runs using Visitor Instruments For NTT programmes involving observations with both EFOSC2 and SOFI to be performed on contiguous nights the minimum duration requirement applies to the combined length of the cor responding EFOSC2 and SOFI run The naming convention SOFOSC is used to refer to this combination see Section 3 2 1 and the ESOFORM manual for more details on how to specify such combined runs in the ESOFORM propo
95. ed FLASH is a single pixel sideband separating receiver covering the 280 370 GHz range with typical T x SSB 100 150 K The receiver is a copy of the ALMA band 8 The PI XFFTS backend has the same characteristics than the facility XFFTS Both IF sidebands are recorded simultaneously 54 allowing to cover 2x4 GHz separated by 12 GHz Note that the 460 GHz channel is undergoing an upgrade and is not offered in period 90 Technical questions on FLASH should be directed to the ESO APEX Project Scientist Dr Carlos De Breuck cdebreuc AT eso org 8 Visitor Instruments Visitor instruments can be mounted at the VLTI the NTT the 3 6 m telescope and at APEX in order to permit innovative observations by teams with their stand alone instruments or to test new instrumental concepts for the development of new facility instruments No Visitor Instrument focus is available on the VLT due to the installation of KMOS Given the arrival of the second generation VLTI instruments ESO cannot guarantee the availability of a VLTI Visitor focus beyond Period 91 The requirements for visitor instruments are substantially reduced compared to the requirements for fully integrated facility instruments A set of guidelines on how to propose a visitor instrument on the VLTI is available at http www eso org sci facilities paranal instruments vlti visitor Technical information on the interface for VLTI Visitor Instruments can be found at http www
96. ee Section 4 1 for additional details and check the online instructions for visiting astronomers Large Programmes on NTT and the 3 6 m telescopes may have a duration of up to four years However for Periods 90 to 91 a large fraction gt 50 of the available science time on the 3 6 m and NTT telescope is already committed to ongoing Large Programmes and Public Surveys see Fig 4 There is a minimum length of 3 nights for runs to be executed with La Silla tele scopes Proposals including La Silla runs with a duration of less than 3 nights will be rejected at submission time by the automatic proposal reception system with three exceptions 1 There is no minimum duration for runs to be carried out with Visitor Instruments see Section 8 However in order to minimise the overheads associated with their installation and removal such instruments are normally scheduled in blocks including several contiguous runs the length of these combined blocks is typically greater than 3 nights 2 On the NTT users can apply for combined runs using both EFOSC2 and SOFI The total duration of each of these runs must be at least three nights The combined runs must be requested using the instrument name SOFOSC Details are also available in Section 3 2 1 and the ESOFORM User Manual 3 There is no minimum duration for runs of Calibration Programmes Note that the minimum duration requirement for La Silla is applicable to each individual
97. ee a OE Ee Se ee eee 10 2 Calibration Plans and Calibration of Science Observations 10 3 Data Reduction Pipelines 22 ee a a eee Ree a A 10 3 1 Data Organization Gasgano and SAFT 0044 10 3 2 Pipelines in the ESO Environment o e 104 Quality Control o s dorise ae aaa a a eS A 10 5 The ESO Science Data Products Forum gt o ea ac ssaa bee oae eaa III Proposal Types Policies and Procedures 11 Proposal Types 11 1 Normal Programmes 080 ok la ee ee a Eo a eA 11 2 Large Programmes oo airea A a a ee A A Be ae a 11 3 Torget of Opportunity lt o nia ee a Oe ee AE ee el 11 3 1 Rapid Response Mode RRM o e ae 11 4 Guaranteed Time Observations e 11 5 Proposals for Calibration Programmes e 1160 Director s Discretionary Time 4 pia ii oaa a AA 11 7 Host State Proposals o y oak ior da s ed ae obs aoa a Mh E a ERE h ai A 11 8 Non Member State Proposals os cocan a e a ior ca kaaa aaa d e aa ee 12 Observing Modes 12 1 Visitor Mode 12 1 1 ToO programme execution during VM observations 12 2 Service Mode 12 2 1 Service 13 Policy Summary Mode policies v sicc 5 3 Woe od ee A e 13 1 Who may submit time allocation policies o o 13 2 Requesting use of non standard observing configurations 13 3 Policy regarding offered available observing configurations
98. elected filter will be mounted for a minimum of two years corresponding to the planned maintenance intervals of the instrument At proposal submission the proposal PI will have to demonstrate the availability of the visitor filter set its compatibility with the instrument requirements and the basic performance of the individual filters 51 6 14 5 VIRCAM calibration plan The VIRCAM calibration plan is described in the VIRCAM VISTA User Manual It is continuously refined and improved based on ongoing observations Future applicants should presume that the photometric calibration is based on 2MASS stars in the field of view with an extinction correction according to Hodgkins et al 2009 MNRAS 394 675 in the extrapolated Y and Z bands Proposers will have to include the time for additional standards in their proposals 6 15 OmegaCAM OmegaCAM is the wide field imager for the Cassegrain focus of the VLT Survey Telescope VST It is the only instrument on this telescope All observations are carried out in service mode OmegaCAM has started regular scientific observations in Q4 2011 In the first two years of operation ESO expects to dedicate all of the available observing time on VST to Public Surveys Chilean and GTO programmes Further details of the public surveys are available at the Public Survey web page Important note Only Chilean and GTO programme proposals will be accepted in Period 90 Sects 11 4 amp 13 1 ESO reserves th
99. en the telescope guiding wavelength and each arm central wavelength Two pairs of ADC prisms in the optical path of the UVB and VIS arms compensate for the atmospheric dispersion at different airmasses Two instrument modes are offered e slit spectroscopy SLT with a selection of different slit widths for each arm and a fixed length of 11 arcsec In Period 90 the offered slits have widths of for the UVB arm 0 5 0 8 1 0 1 3 1 6 5 0 arcsec for t he VIS arm 0 4 0 7 0 9 1 2 1 5 5 0 arcsec for the NIR arm 0 4 0 6 0 6 K band blocking filter 0 9 0 9 K band blocking filter 1 2 5 0 arcsec a blind position e IFU spectroscopy which allows observations of a 1 8 x 4 arcsec field reformatted to a 0 6 x 12 arcsec long slit The spectral format is fixed The orders in each detector are highly curved and the sky arc lines within each order are highly tilted 34 The minimum DIT in the NIR arm is 0 66s The 1800s DIT in the NIR arm is only offered in full night VM as it introduces severe remnants However the use of 1800 s DIT in the NIR arm with the 0 6 or 0 9 slit combined with a K band blocking filter could be possibly granted also in SM observations provided the strategy is very well justified through a waiver request at Phase 2 We encourage the users to read the XSHOOTER NIR readout mode description about the NIR non destructive readout mode and its different regimes Proposers should refer to the XSH
100. entation is similar to LABOCA though a smaller wobbler throw of 25 is recommended The required observing time to reach the same RMS for a point source is a factor of 6 2 shorter compared to the mapping mode Potential users of the SABOCA photometry mode should be aware that a very accurate pointing is essential to use this mode This generally requires the availability of a bright S350 pm gt 1 Jy pointing source within 10 of the targets During period 90 SABOCA is expected to be available only in August and October 2012 Exposure time estimates should assume a noise equivalent flux density NEFD 200 Jy s weather conditions of PWV 0 5mm 37 working bolometers and a 90 overhead for slewing pointing focus and calibrations A dedicated SABOCA integration time calculator is available at http www apex telescope org bolometer saboca obscalc 7 4 FLASH heterodyne receiver MPIfR PI instrument The 345 GHz channel of the MPIfR PI instrument FLASH is again offered to the ESO community on a collaborative basis with MPIfR Users who would like to use FLASH must contact the PI Dr Rolf Guesten mailto rguesten AT mpifr bonn mpg de at least two weeks prior to submitting the proposal for which they are requesting approval Members of the PI team should be included as Cols on the proposal The observations will be done by the PI team during a maximum of 3 days Large programmes or time critical observations with FLASH will not be accept
101. eometry A single correlated flux measurement is not useful As correlated flux measurements are obtained in Visitor Mode source photometry is taken at the user s discretion ESO does not guarantee this photometry to be useful in particular for visibility calibration A proposal can consist of different observations of the same target with different baselines and or hour angles in which case the observing time to be requested is simply computed as the number of required time slots multiplied by the duration of one slot as given in Table 18 Time constrained observations e g variable objects can be requested 6 13 AMBER Astronomical Multi BEam combineR AMBER is a near infrared multi beam interferometric instrument combining up to 3 telescopes simultaneously In Period 90 AMBER can be used with UTs or ATs For specifications of the UT and AT performances see Section 4 2 2 and Section 4 2 4 All possible triplets of UTs are available and a number of selected AT combinations For the telescope positions and baseline lengths of the different AT and UT baselines please refer to the VLTI baseline page Because of the limited availability of UTs for AMBER any scientific programme on the UTs should be designed so that scientifically meaningful results can be achieved in a single night Important note In addition to allow for the installation of the Deformable Secondary Mirror UT4 will not be available during part of Period 92 Large Progr
102. es Details of the first release of advanced data products from the VISTA Public Surveys are available from the Phase 3 Data Releases page These data products can be downloaded directly using the VISTA Query Form The PIs of Large Programmes that have been accepted since Period 75 are required to deliver final data products to ESO by the time their results are published see Section 11 2 The procedure to be followed is described at http archive eso org cms eso data data submission An overview of ADP releases from Large Programmes is given at http archive eso org cms eso data advanced data products releases The PIs of Calibration Programmes are required to deliver the resulting data products to ESO within 1 year of the completion of the corresponding observations Voluntary submission of Advanced Data Products by PIs of Normal Programmes is also encouraged The procedure for submission to ESO of ADP from all types of programmes is the same as for Large Programmes 3 How to submit an ESO Phase 1 proposal 3 1 How to obtain the ESOFORM Proposal Package The ESOFORM Proposal Package for this period may be obtained by logging into the ESO User Portal Please follow the instructions at http www eso org sci observing proposals esoform html 3 2 The ESOFORM Proposal Form The ESOFORM User Manual describes in detail how to fill the TEX template and which information is needed to make a proposal valid Please
103. eso org sci facilities paranal instruments vlti visitor requirements html Technical information on the interface to the NTT and 3 6 m telescope is found at http www eso org sci facilities lasilla instruments visitor VisitorInstruments pdf 9 How to estimate overheads Service and Visitor Mode observers must include the overhead times associated with their science target observations in their proposals For Service Mode observations the total execution time requested for every planned Observation Block OB must include all overheads from telescope presetting and target acquisition to all other relevant instrument overheads Proposers should note that all overheads must be accounted for within one hour for each OB Section 12 2 1 Time for night time calibrations and associated overheads must be included only in cases where the accuracy of the observatory calibration plan is not deemed sufficient for the science goals Please note that calibrations need to be executed as part of the science OBs in some instrument modes e g attached calibrations for all VIMOS IFU and MOS modes see the VIMOS User Manual for details The time needed to execute such attached calibrations must be included in the proposal Section 10 2 Table 18 provides typical overheads associated with individual instruments More details can be found in the instrument manuals Proposers are strongly encouraged to make use of the Phase 2 Preparation Tool P2PP durin
104. f requested Right Ascension The distribution of the demand in Right Ascension RA is far from uniform throughout the year see Figs 2 and 3 and the probability that an OPC recommended run is successfully scheduled and completed depends on this pressure Proposers are encouraged to read the article by Alves amp Lombardi 2004 The ESO Messenger 118 15 on the sky distribution of VLT observations In order to optimize the chances of time allocation and to maximize the scientific return of the 10 7 0 6 0 E UT1 E UT2 5 0 E UT3 2 5 E UTA a Y 4 0 B 2 2 a ZA 3 6 7 S NTT 9 3 0 a O vit v 2 El APEX 2 0 1 0 0 0 Period Figure 1 Ratio of the amount of requested time to the amount of allocated time pressure on each telescope over the past 4 years Large ToO Calibration and GTO programmes are not included 14 12 10 Requested Time 00 30 02 30 04 30 06 30 08 30 10 30 12 30 14 30 16 30 18 30 20 30 22 30 Right Ascension Figure 2 Distribution of requested time percentage of total on Paranal and La Silla as a function of Right Ascension RA The histogram bins have a width of 2h and are labelled with the RA of their centre The data for all requested targets over the last 10 periods are shown here 11 30 25 E UT1 E UT2 E UT3 E UT4 m2 2 23 6 NTT El VLTI_UT O VLTI_AT Requested Time 00 30 02 30 04 30 06 30 08 30 10 30 12 30 Right Ascension Figure 3 Prediction
105. fic topic e proposals asking for follow up observations of a programme recently conducted from ground based and or space facilities where a quick implementation should provide break through results e proposals of a somewhat risky nature requesting a small amount of observing time to test the feasibility of a programme DDT programmes that have target of opportunity runs should mark their corresponding Run Types as TOO in the ObservingRun macro See the ESOFORM User Manual for more details DDT programmes involving TOO runs should also fill in the TOORun macros in the ESOFORM proposal template as instructed Approved DDT proposals are carried out in Service Mode on Paranal and Chajnantor or in Visitor Mode override on La Silla Very few non time critical DDT proposals are foreseen to be approved 66 so proposers should provide a clear justification in Box 9b of the application form why the pro gramme should be considered for DDT allocation and why it was not submitted through the regular OPC channel In the absence of such a justification the proposal will not be considered for DDT allocation and the proposers will be encouraged to resubmit their proposals for the next appropriate OPC submission deadline As a general rule proposals originally submitted to the OPC that were not allocated time must not be submitted as DDT proposals DDT proposals may be submitted at any time They must be prepared using the special ESOFORM DDT
106. following additional criteria will be taken into account e The required telescope instrumentation is not available at any other observatory accessible to the applicants e If an ESO member state proposal and a non member state proposal are rated equally prefer ence will be given to the ESO member state proposal 70 The following policy extracted from the agreement between ESO and its host state Chile governs the allocation of time to Host State Proposals Section 11 7 Chilean scientists who present meritorious projects shall have the right to obtain up to 10 of the observing time of ESO tele scopes For VLT projects at least one half of this 10 shall be dedicated to projects of Chilean astronomers in cooperation with astronomers of ESO member countries Following the recommendations of the OPC and a technical feasibility check the ESO Director General grants observing time based on OPC ranking and availability However in the case of sudden astronomical events a ToO or DDT programme may be activated and may lead to an interruption of the currently active run 13 2 Requesting use of non standard observing configurations Proposers should pay particular attention to the fact that as indicated in the instrument manuals use of certain non standard instrumental modes or configurations requires prior approval by ESO This approval must be obtained before submitting the Phase 1 proposal Corresponding requests including a brief
107. for observing time should be submitted as DDT proposals Section 11 6 and not as ToO proposals 2 Predictable ToOs are those concerning predictable events in a generic sense only These are typically but not limited to known transient phenomena and follow up or coordinated observations of targets of special interest Proposals aimed at studying such events are in the ESO proposal terminology ToO proposals ToO proposals must be submitted using the Normal Programme ESOFORM template Proposals should be for generic targets and or times However if accepted by the OPC the programme will not be executed until the PI contacts ESO to request its activation after the predicted event has occurred The observing strategy must be the one approved by the OPC and the triggers may not exceed the allocated time and number of triggers granted by the OPC The observations will be conducted in Service Mode and in exceptional cases ongoing programmes may be interrupted Read more on ToO policy As ToO programmes may require a mixture of ToO runs and normal see 3 2 1 runs Proposers are requested to specify the type of runs TOO or normal in the tenth final field of the ObservingRun macro of the ESOFORM FETrX template A more detailed description and examples can be found in the ESOFORM User Manual ToO runs are defined as runs for which the target cannot be known more than one week before the observation needs to be executed Such runs will be schedule
108. found at http www eso org sci archive calselectorInfo html Public Spectroscopic Surveys PSS Two Public Spectroscopic Surveys were ap proved in Period 88 following the recommendations made by the ESO Public Spectroscopic Survey Panel and the Observing Programmes Committee These surveys will be car ried out on the NTT telescope using EFOSC2 and SOFI and on the UT2 tele scope using FLAMES GIRAFFE amp UVES Further details are available on the ESO Public Surveys Projects webpage A call for Public Spectroscopic Surveys with VIMOS will be considered in due time when the instrument upgrade has finished and the current backlog of observations has been reduced Precipitable Water Vapour PWV A radiometer was successfully commissioned at Paranal in October 2010 which continuously provides a measurement of the amount of precipitable water vapour PWV above the observatory Users of CRIRES and APEX instruments in service mode should specify PWV as an observing constraint during their Phase 1 and Phase 2 preparation It is expected that VISIR users will also be able to provide PWV constraints during their Phase 2 preparation Examples are shown in the ESOFORM package template files SPHERE and MUSE Commissioning ISAAC will likely be decommissioned during Period 90 to allow the installation of SPHERE In the course of 2013 NACO will be removed from the UT4 Nasmyth B platform to allow the installation of MUSE Large Programme
109. g the preparation of their proposals in order to accurately determine the overheads required by their programmes It is possible to simulate the detailed breakdown of the programme in terms of its constituent Observation Blocks OBs using the P2PP tutorial accounts see Section 1 4 of the P2PP User Manual available at http www eso org sci observing phase2 P2PPTool P2PPDocumentation html The Execution Time Report option offered by P2PP provides an accurate estimate of the time needed for the execution of each OB including all the necessary overheads The total execution time estimated by P2PP reflects the official ESO time accounting in Service Mode Table 18 Telescope and Instrument Overheads 55 Hardware item Action Time minutes La Silla telescopes Preset point and acquire target 4 La Silla telescopes Preset NTT with image analysis 6 HARPS Read out 1 EFOSC2 Read out 2 SOFI Imaging 30 of total int time SOFI Spectroscopy 25 of total int time FEROS Read out 2 WFI Move to gap pixel 7 WFI Template change with initial offset lt 120 0 5 WFI Template change with initial offset gt 120 1 WFI Filter change 1 WFI Offset readout 1 17 Paranal telescopes Preset UTs 6 FORS2 Acquisition 1 cycle w o exp time 1 5 or 2 FORS2 Through Slit Image 2 cycles w o exp times 4 FORS2 Instrument Setup 1 FORS2 Retarder Plate Setup per PMOS IPOL OB 1 FORS2 Read out 100kHz bi
110. gth calibration will be tested that may act as a replacement for the ThAr lamp if it provides significantly more lines Provided an adequate observational strategy is followed radial velocity measurements to better than 20m s can be reached for stars showing a sufficient number of spectral features See the CRIRES User Manual for details 6 1 1 Calibration The observer has to supply his her own standard star calibration OBs to correct for telluric features In particular for Service Mode observations OBs are typically executed in one hour blocks therefore a telluric OB should be supplied for each science OB in order to achieve a proper correction High precision wavelength calibration or flat fielding requires an attached template The observing time needed to execute these night time calibrations is charged to the observer The Observatory provides day time calibrations such as lamp flats and wavelength calibrations with the same wavelength settings as those used for the science as well as darks obtained with the same detector settings as the science and telluric observations lamp flats and wavelength calibration frames Note however that day time wavelength calibrations are only provided for A lt 2 4j m as calibrations based on sky lines are better for redder wavelengths in any case From Period 90 there will be the possibility to take night time calibrations with a 0 2 or 0 4 slit Finally it is possible that due to th
111. he whole OPC hence including non experts in their specific field They should therefore clearly explain the relevance of the proposed programme to general astrophysics 11 3 1 Rapid Response Mode RRM ESO continues to offer VLT Rapid Response Mode RRM During Period 90 FORS2 on UT1 UVES and XSHOOTER on UT2 ISAAC on UT3 and SINFONI and HAWK I on UT4 are available in RRM RRM proposers should note that e A RRM trigger is a special ToO trigger that can only be activated up to 4 hours after an event If a longer time span has passed since the event observations should be requested through normal ToO triggers 64 e As with ToO programmes proposers will need to indicate in the BTEX template the number of targets per run and the requested number of triggers per target e RRM runs have to be specified as separate runs in the ESOFORM template Upon receiving an encoded alert indicating the coordinates of the target and the associated Observing Block OB to be executed any ongoing integration will automatically be terminated and the RRM OB will be executed Depending on the instrument and the target position the tele scope instrument will be at the location of the target within about 6 minutes following the arrival of the alert at Paranal Depending on the target brightness and instrument mode target acquisition may take some more time RRM observations in Period 90 are subject to the following restrictions e The requested inst
112. he requested instrument s Proposers are reminded that the P2PP Phase 2 Proposal Preparation tool tutorials and P2PP tutorial account for all VLT instruments are useful in preparing Phase 1 proposals Proposers should discuss their technical requirements with the appropriate experts before submitting their proposals if necessary They can be reached at usd help eso org the User Support Department for Paranal and Chajnantor and lasilla eso org for La Silla Advice about policies and about the practical aspects of proposal preparation e g the specifi cation of time constraints fulfilment of minimum run length for La Silla etc should be sought from the Observing Programmes Office opo eso org The following sections give some additional information and references that should be useful to proposers 2 1 Distribution of telescope demand On all telescopes the amount of requested time exceeds the amount of time that can be allocated by a significant factor Figure 1 shows the pressure on each telescope over the past 4 years The pressure is defined as the ratio of the amount of time requested on the considered telescope for execution of Normal Programmes to the amount of time allocated to these programmes on this telescope Large ToO Calibration and GTO Programmes whose selection and scheduling are handled differently in particular with pre defined upper limits of time allocation are not included in the figure 2 1 1 Distribution o
113. his mode is particularly useful for faint objects Its peak efficiency is 11 and the gain in flux with respect to the HARPS base mode is 75 at 530nm with a seeing of 0 8 This mode is now equipped with only one fibre therefore neither the sky subtraction nor the simultaneous Thorium reference method can be applied The intrinsic instrument stability better than 1 m s is superior to the EGGS radial velocity accuracy the achievable radial velocity accuracy of the EGGS mode is limited by systematics and is 10m s RMS The amount of diffuse light in the spectrograph is 4 The EGGS mode is also supported by a full reduction pipeline running at the telescope Both raw and reduced data will be delivered to the user The HARPS baseline mode and the high efficiency mode can both be used during the same night The time needed to switch from one mode to the other is about 1 minute For radial velocity measurements a calibration sequence similar to that of the base mode should be used A polarimeter is also available on HARPS The unit is able to perform both circular and linear polarimetry Measurements of the throughput indicate a light loss with respect to the base mode of HARPS in the range of 20 to 30 increasing to 40 in the bluest orders Instrumental polarization is not detected down to a level of 1074 for zenith angles smaller than 60 degrees Closer to the horizon instrumental polarization grows rapidly if the Atmospheric Dispersion Corrector i
114. iary Telescope for the VLT Interferometer Carbon Heterodyne Array of the MPIfR Co Investigator High Resolution Near Infrared CAmera Cryogenic high resolution IR Echelle Spectrometer Director s Discretionary Time proposal Discrete Integration Time Deep Public Survey ESO Imaging Survey ESO Faint Object Spectrograph and Camera 2 European Southern Observatory Exposure Time Calculator Fibre fed Extended Range Optical Spectrograph First Light Apex Sub millimeter Heterodyne Fast Fourier Transform Spectrometer FORS Instrumental Mask Simulator Fringe Tracking Instrument of NIzza and TOrino Fibre Large Array Multi Element Spectrograph First Light Apex Sub millimeter Heterodyne Fraction of Lunar Illumination Focal Reducer low dispersion Spectrograph 1 Focal Reducer low dispersion Spectrograph 2 Field Of View Gran Telescopio Canarias Guaranteed Time Observations High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher High Acuity Wide field K band Imager Intermediate Band Integral Field Unit InfraRed Infrared Spectrometer And Array Camera K band Multi Object Spectrograph LArge BOlometer CAmera Linear Atmospheric Dispersion Compensator Laser Guide Star Local Sidereal Time Long Wavelength in the IR MID infrared Interferometric instrument Multi Object Spectroscopy Max Planck Gesellschaft Max Planck Institut fiir Radioastronomie Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer NAOS CONICA Nasmyth Adaptive Optics System 74 NB NGS OB
115. ifferent configurations should thus be in different OBs e OB Total Execution Time Proposers should make sure that all overheads including telescope presetting and acquisition overheads as specified in Table 18 have been properly included e OB execution times must be below 1 hour Long OBs are more difficult to schedule and execute within the specified constraints because of the unpredictable evolution of the observing conditions OBs taking more than one hour to execute are not normally accepted Proposers are especially encouraged to plan for OBs substantially shorter than one hour if the execution conditions are particularly demanding as the fulfilment of all the constraints during the entire execution time becomes more unlikely as the OB becomes longer e Phase 1 constraints are binding also see Section 13 5 As constraints play an essential role in determining the long term scheduling of SM time a relaxation of observing constraints is permissible at Phase 2 but ESO will not allow any tightening of constraints Changes with respect to the times on target specified at Phase 1 will not be allowed at Phase 2 e Fulfilment of Phase 2 constraints ESO will consider an OB as successfully executed if all the conditions in the constraint set are fulfilled OBs executed under conditions marginally outside constraints by no more than 10 of the specified value will not be scheduled for re execution Adaptive Optics assisted observations within 5
116. iod 90 in collaboration with MPIfR The 460 GHz channel will be upgraded and is not offered in period 90 CHAMP This instruments will undergo an upgrade and is not offered in Period 90 Z SPEC This PI instrument is no longer offered at APEX 1 2 Important reminders e General information ESO User Portal Proposals are submitted via a web upload procedure using the online tool Web Application for Submitting Proposals WASP This requires users to first log in to the ESO User Portal at http www eso org UserPortal See Section 3 for more details Duplications Large amounts of data are available via the ESO data archive Section 2 3 see http archive eso org Proposers are strongly advised to check if observations equivalent to the proposed ones have been performed already Proposers must check that their planned observations are not duplicating Guaranteed Time proposals for Period 90 GTO for Period 90 or ongoing Public Survey observations Overheads All proposals Service Mode or Visitor Mode must include all overheads in the computation of the total requested observing time see Section 9 Access to Service Mode SM data Principal Investigators of Service Mode pro grammes have access to their proprietary SM raw data as soon as the data have been ingested in the ESO Archive The data access is provided through the ESO User Portal The CalSelector archive service packs together the science files with any
117. is offered in Service and Visitor Mode Note that PARSEC the laser currently used by the Laser Guide Star Facility will likely be decommissioned during Period 90 and be replaced by a prototype of the laser used by the coming AOF As a consequence no LGS assisted observations will take place during a period of 10 weeks currently scheduled from end of October 2012 to early January 2013 6 10 2 Offered modes CONICA is the imager and spectrograph which is fed by NAOS CONICA offers a large range of modes filters grisms and masks Only the main characteristics of each mode are described here Details can be found in the NACO Users Manual For low Strehl ratios a few percent or less users should carefully weigh the advantages of using NACO over other IR instruments such as HAWK I and ISAAC which generally have larger fields of view lower backgrounds and higher throughputs A summary of the offered modes is given in Table 11 Table 11 NaCo modes in Period 90 Imaging SM and VM All filters except Mp Imaging cube SM and VM Limited setups noAO Open loop Imaging cube SM and VM Limited setups SDI SM and VM Replaces SDI Lyot Coronagraphy SM and VM C_0 7 C_1 4 all cameras C_0 7_sep_10 not S13 camera field and pupil tracking 4QPM Coronagraphy SM and VM Optimized for H and K field and pupil tracking APP Coronography SM and VM Simple Imaging L and NB_4 05 only SAM VM Includes pupil tracki
118. ission spectrum of the atmosphere the range of values given in Table 7 reflects this variation 35 Table 7 ISAAC Period 90 offered spectroscopic modes Instrument Mode A AX Scale Mag limit Range pixel SW LRes Spectroscopy 500 0 147 18 20 5 SW MRes Spectroscopy 3000 0 147 17 5 19 5 LW LRes Spectroscopy 500 0 147 11 14 LW MRes Spectroscopy 2000 0 147 10 13 Technical details restrictions and overheads of the new modes are available at the ISAAC web page 6 7 VIMOS VIsible Multi Object Spectrograph VIMOS is a multi mode wide field optical instrument attached at the Nasmyth B focus of Melipal UT3 VIMOS allows imaging IMG and multi object spectroscopy MOS at low R 200 to medium resolution R 2500 over a field of view FOV composed of four quadrants each 7 x 8 separated by 2 gaps MOS masks which are prepared with the Mask Manufacturing Unit MMU on Paranal allow considerable freedom in the positioning shape and orientation of the slits The maximum number of slits that can be typically accommodated in the VIMOS FOV is up to 750 at low resolution and up to 150 at higher resolution The actual number of slits will depend on the multiplex used target density and their distribution in the field of view Important notes e The VIMOS upgrade project continues with the replacement of the HR_blue grism for a new high throughput VPH grism and the refurbishment of focusing
119. ith must be taken into account in choosing the offset pattern Observations in cube mode with a window of 512x514 pixels further reduce the useful FoV to to 14 x 2 5 Since P87 APP enhanced grism spectroscopy is offered but only in VM and for the setups detailed in Section 5 5 2 of the NACO Users Manual Note about APP imaging The approximate limiting magnitudes for imaging are listed in Table 13 These limits de pend on many factors such as the readout mode the NAOS dichroic etc Users should use the preparation software and the ETC for detailed calculations For L band imaging without chopping observations are done only with the AutoJitter template to ensure proper sky subtraction Observations leading to saturation of an object in the field of view must be aware of the remanence electronic ghosts and observational constraints listed in Section 6 14 of the NACO Users Manual In particular the diameters of the saturated area for each bright target must be provided in the Phase 1 proposal Observations leading to a saturated area whose diameter exceeds 4 pixels must 43 Table 13 NACO magnitude limits with the NAOS visual dichroic Band J H Ks L FWHM mas 32 42 56 98 Sky Background mag 16 0 14 0 13 04 3 0 Limiting Magnitude 24 05 24 05 23 35 18 55 1 With the NAOS N90C10 dichroic the background for Ks is 11 0 mag per square arc second UA
120. justification must be submitted by email to usd help eso org at least two weeks before the proposal submission deadline Failure to follow this rule may lead to the rejection of the proposal by ESO for technical reasons 13 3 Policy regarding offered available observing configurations Users will be promptly informed if it becomes impossible to support some currently offered instru ment mode and may be asked to switch from Service Mode to Visitor Mode or vice versa In general runs requiring non standard configurations will only be accepted in Visitor Mode 13 4 Observing programme execution Observations in both Visitor and Service Mode must be executed as described in the Phase 1 proposal including the instrument modes and specified targets Departures from Phase 1 specifi cations and targets will not generally be allowed unless a sound scientific justification exists and provided that the change does not involve a significant increase in the pressure factor on oversub scribed regions of the sky The request for changes of targets and instrument set up s along with the corresponding scientific justification must be submitted via the web based form available at http www eso org sci observing phase2 ProgChange For any other departure from Phase 1 specifications a justification must be provided in writing to paranal eso org at least one month before the beginning of the observations for runs scheduled in Visitor Mode For Servi
121. ll data products processed images and spectra catalogues to the ESO archive by the time their scientific results are published in a refereed journal Guidelines for submission of these data products including a description of the required metadata and formats can be found at http archive eso org cms eso data data submission Proposers are invited to write an email to usd help eso org for further information During the period of execution of a Large Programme and upon its completion the PI will be invited by ESO to report to the OPC on the programme s preliminary results He she may also be asked to give a more comprehensive presentation of the outcome of the programme at an ESO Large Programme workshop similar to those of May 19 21 2003 and of October 13 15 2008 11 3 Target of Opportunity Normally up to 5 of the available ESO general observing time may be used for Target of Opportunity ToO proposals For events with exceptional characteristics ESO will also consider overriding Visitor Mode observations ESO recognizes two categories of Targets of Opportunity 63 1 Unpredictable ToOs are those concerning unpredictable astronomical events that require immediate observations The occurrence of such events cannot be foreseen with sufficient anticipation to allow them to be the subject of proposal submission by the regular deadline They qualify for allocation of Director Discretionary Time Corresponding applications
122. m laser source providing a uniform density of lines and a relatively flat spectrum over the HARPS wavelength range In the FPCS case no contamination is seen due to the strong Ar lines the photon noise is half of that measured in the ThAr lamp i e 4 cm s71 while the stability within one night is better than 10 cm s Programmes that require very high precision and for which contamination of the stellar spectra by ThAr should be avoided might benefit from the use of the FPCS However we caution users that the long term behavior is still under study HARPS is equipped with its own pipeline installed on La Silla This pipeline provides the visiting astronomer with extracted and wavelength calibrated spectra in near real time in all observing 25 modes When the Simultaneous Thorium Reference Method is applied the pipeline delivers precise radial velocities RV relative to the solar system barycentre for late type stars whose RV is known within 1 2km s provided that a set of standard calibrations has been executed in the afternoon An additional fibre with a larger aperture 1 4 on the sky is available for HARPS This high efficiency mode is dubbed EGGS The higher efficiency compared to the base mode referred to as HAM is achieved by reducing flux losses through the larger fibre aperture and by dispensing the image scrambler The resolving power of the mode due to the larger fibre decreases to about 80000 T
123. me Calculators s no a ostes soado acra sonas dd 11 2 3 Online Data Products Public Surveys Science Verification Advanced Data Products 13 3 How to submit an ESO Phase 1 proposal 13 3 1 How to obtain the ESOFORM Proposal Package o 13 32 The BSOPORM Proposal Fora voice 02 ar AA ae 13 3 2 1 Important recent changes to ESOFORM o o 14 3 2 2 Observing conditions definitions lt lt ooo lt lt oo o s 14 duo Proposal SUbMISsION acia a a e A A a 15 II ESO Telescopes and their Instrumentation 17 4 The Observatory 17 ACA E a hed card ete tebe ke a ae So Na ee YE Oe Be ee ee 17 AD NN 18 4 2 1 The VLT Unit Telescopes UTs o 18 42 2 UTs Performance o os c cp adn A de ars 18 4 2 3 Laser Guide Star facility on UT4 oooooooooorrco s 19 424 The ATs VEU only coso ee we de A e Pa a e a 20 Be E A dos Se Sed AOS oH eee ee aes 6 OG eee Be 20 AMG NOV 24 5504 eadar bia dbb ead bbe Chae eee Gadde eas 20 4 2 7 Paranal meteorological conditions 21 43 Chajnantof oso A eee A A A 21 5 Scientific Instruments La Silla 22 5 1 Sofl Son of ISAAC on the NTT o oo 22 5 1 1 ESO Public Spectroscopic Surveys o e e arau 23 5 2 EFOSC2 ESO Faint Object Spectrograph and Camera 2 on the NTT 23 5 2 1 ESO Public Spectroscopic Surveys s io sa do messa pa toara 24 5 3 HARPS
124. my The Atacama Large Millimeter submillimeter Array ALMA a collaboration between Europe North America and East Asia is also currently starting early science at the Llano de Chajnantor APEX radiometer data 2006 2011 6 quartile quartile Oo quartile n E Q z oO Ss ov a o Y Q E vu o Y an o ha oO PWV mm Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Month Figure 6 Annual variation of the precipitable water vapour PWV content at Chajnantor based on 6 years of observations with the APEX radiometer Blue green and red histograms indicate the 25 50 and 75 percentile levels respectively The yearly APEX science operations period from 20 March until 20 December is scheduled to avoid the poor conditions during Altiplanic winter During Period 90 ESO observations are expected to be scheduled in August October and December 22 ESO has been offering time on the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment APEX a 12 meter radio telescope at the Chajnantor site since Period 77 APEX is an international collaboration involving the Max Planck Institut fiir Radioastronomie MPIfR Onsala Space Observatory OSO and ESO ESO receives 24 7 of the observing time on APEX The distribution of the observing time between the APEX partners can be found on the APEX web pages During Period 90 the ESO time is expected to be scheduled in August October and December Time critical observations should only be
125. n cause the loss of the guide star resulting in large operational overheads If an offset pattern with a greater amplitude is needed users should use separate OBs at each offset position The increased overhead time due to this feature must be accounted for when estimating the total time needed for VIMOS imaging runs In IMG mode filter exchanges are allowed within an OB Overheads for filter exchanges need to be included using the estimate given in Table 18 6 7 2 VIMOS observation requirements MOS and pre imaging MOS observations are performed with machine cut masks that have to be prepared well in advance ESO provides a software package vmmps for slit definition and positioning for Phase 2 preparation equivalent to FIMS for the FORS instruments The user can define rectangular slits of width wider than 0 6 and length up to 30 Inclined slits can be defined The change of CCDs that took place during P85 June July 2010 invalidated all pre imaging data 37 Table 9 VIMOS IMG limiting magnitudes Magnitude limit S N 5 U 26 1 B 27 4 V 26 9 R 26 6 1 25 9 z 25 1 taken before August 1 2010 Pre imaging is mandatory for subsequent spectroscopic MOS follow ups even when targets come from a pre defined catalogue and must be carried out with the R filter Pre imaging is done in Service Mode this also applies for MOS Visitor runs separate runs must be requested for pre imaging in the Phase 1 proposal and
126. n filter OmegaCAM data are taken in the context of a calibration plan that ensures that all data can be photometrically and astrometrically calibrated to 0 05 magnitude and 0 1 arcsec rms precision respectively The image quality distribution measured on OmegaCAM images in g r i between August 2011 and January 2012 is available in the OmegaCAM Web page These measurements show median IQ of 0 80 0 85 in r and i bands and 0 95 in g band The numbers are consistent with an outside median seeing of 0 8 at 500 600nm convolved with an internal IQ of 0 4 Users are encouraged to take these on detector statistics into account when defining seeing constraints for Phase 1 and 2 In operations these constraints are always interpreted as IQ on detector not the outside seeing Please see the OmegaCAM page for more details including Phase I and IT manuals 7 Scientific Instruments Chajnantor 7 1 SHFI The APEX Swedish Heterodyne Facility Instrument SHFI contains 4 single pixel receivers e APEX 1 a Single Side Band SSB Superconductor Insulator Superconductor SIS receiver 52 covering 211 275 GHz with SSB receiver temperature Tyee around 130K between 210 and 260 GHz and 180K between 260 and 270GHz APEX 1 covers low frequencies allowing ob servations during conditions with PWV gt 2mm Larger proposals for PWV gt 2 mm conditions are encouraged e APEX 2 a Single Side Band receiver covering 275 370 GHz with SSB receiver tempera
127. n observing run Typically 50 or 33 of the observing time is spent on sky if NDIT gx NDIT Target or NDIT spy 1 2 NDIT qurget 6 11 4 Calibrations Observations of telluric standard stars at an airmass within 0 1 of the science observation will be offered as part of the SINFONI calibration plan for all modes available i e for all combinations of image scales and gratings Darks internal flat fields and wavelength calibrations are also part of the SINFONI calibration plan and are taken during daytime Time to obtain special calibrations such as observations of PSF reference stars must be requested in the proposal 6 11 5 Modes that are not offered Observations with the sky spider and spectral dithering are not offered in Period 90 6 12 MIDI MID infrared Interferometric instrument MIDI is the VLTI instrument for N band 8 13 um interferometry It is a two beam recombiner giving values of moduli of fringe visibility samples in the u v plane depending on the wavelength spectral resolution R 30 or R 230 MIDI is offered in both Service and Visitor Modes and 46 Table 15 MIDI limiting uncorrelated flux LUF Telescopes Beam combiner Spectrograph Limit N mag Limit Jy 12um UTs CORR_FLUX PRISM 5 7 0 2 UTs HIGH_SENS PRISM 4 1 UTs HIGH SENS GRISM 2 8 3 UTs SCIPHOT PRISM 3 2 2 UTs SCILPHOT GRISM 2 6 ATs HIGH SENS PRISM 0 74 20 ATs HIGH_SENS GRISM 0 31 30 ATs SCIPHOT PRISM 0 0 A
128. n their OPC recommended priority and a proper match between the requested and the actual observing conditions An article about SM scheduling appeared in The ESO Messenger 2001 v 105 p 18 The article helps proposers understand how they may optimize their use of this observing mode and it should be considered compulsory reading for SM proposers SM PIs and their delegates have direct access via their personal ESO User Portal account to their own raw proprietary data as soon as the data is ingested in the ESO Archive Note that in Service Mode the proprietary period for a given science file starts as soon as the data are made electronically available to PIs or to those to whom they have delegated their data access rights Please note that SM proposers must include overheads for all science exposures Guidelines are provided in Section 9 ESO will absorb all the time required to complete the calibration sequences to the level of accuracy foreseen in the calibration plan see Section 10 2 as well as overheads associated with such calibra tions If those calibrations are not adequate the SM proposer must include time for any additional calibrations including overheads 68 Proposers are especially encouraged to request Service Mode on Paranal if their programme in volves Target of Opportunity events or synoptic observing or if they require the best observing conditions which occur at unpredictable intervals Further information on SM
129. ncorrelated magnitudes are given in Table 15 e For MIDI the correlated flux is defined by the uncorrelated flux in Jy 12um multiplied by the estimated visibility Except for the correlated flux mode where the MIDI limiting correlated flux LCF limit is equal to the MIDI limiting uncorrelated flux LUF limit the LCF can be obtained for each mode from the LUF of this mode using LCF 0 5 x LUF see Table 15 Various spectral filters for acquisition images Details on MIDI and its instrumental modes can be found on the MIDI web page The raw accuracy of the visibility measurements is typically better than 20 The highest accuracy for calibrated visibilities can be obtained in SCIPHOT mode provided target and calibrator are both brighter than 15Jy for UTs and 200Jy for ATs The visibility of the Science source is abso lutely calibrated by observing a Calibration Source Two calibration modes are offered Science Calibration SCI CAL for normal accuracy requirements or Calibration Science Calibration CAL SCI CAL for high accuracy requirements For the correlated flux mode a CAL SCI CAL sequence is mandatory with the additional restriction that the same calibrator star should be used before and after the science target observations Since 47 correlated fluxes are not normalized like visibilities they must be compared to other correlated fluxes of the same object taken at different baseline vectors in order to infer the source g
130. nd Quality Control group A brief summary of the calibration plan for each instrument is available online from http www eso org qc pipeline status html 10 2 Calibration Plans and Calibration of Science Observations The calibration plans typically aim to calibrate science data to a target accuracy of 5 10 This may not be sufficient for all science programmes Important note Not all instrument modes and or configurations are covered by the cur rent calibration plans Read the appropriate user manual and online documentation carefully http www eso org qc pipeline status html Daytime calibrations included in the calibration plans e g bias flat fields and arc lamp exposures are performed by the Observatory for both Service and Visitor Mode runs Whenever possible these calibration data are obtained in the morning immediately after the conclusion of night time operations Service and Visitor Mode users receive these data via the CalSelector see below Service Mode runs Certain ESO specified night time calibrations e g photometric standard stars telluric absorption correction stars are obtained systematically as described by the calibra tion plan in the instrument specific user manuals For many programmes these calibrations may be sufficient Service Mode proposers should only request enough time to complete their science observations If the published calibration plan is not sufficient Service Mode proposers must reques
131. nding on the spectral range and mode The VISIR spectrometer observing modes have the following restrictions e Acquisition is possible with the spectro imager only for targets brighter than 200 mJy using the N_SW or N_LW filters and for targets brighter than 50 mJy using the Nel filter Fainter targets can be acquired with restrictions on allowed airmass and slitwidth using the imager with sensitivities as given in the web page e Absorption line spectroscopy is untested and flatfielding problems may be anticipated The slits cover a range of 04 1 0 in width and 40 in length The image scale in the spatial direction will be 0 0762 pixel Please refer to the VISIR Web pages for further details Note that sensitivity limits in the MIR vary strongly with wavelength due to the atmosphere 39 6 8 3 Calibrations In imaging one photometric standard star observation will be provided per science target with no cost for the user In low resolution spectroscopy the Observatory will provide spectrophotometric observations of a telluric standard star Such a calibration measurement will be performed at least once per night per instrument configuration The Observatory does not provide standard star calibrations for VISIR medium and high resolution spectroscopy If MR HR or any additional standard star observations are required the user has to supply his her own calibration OBs using the corresponding calibration templates The observing
132. ng and cube mode SAM Pol VM SAM with Woll_00 Polarimetry SM and VM Woll_00 retarder plate only Polarimetry cube SM and VM Woll_00 retarder plate only Grism Spectroscopy SM and VM All modes except pupil tracking Grism Spectroscopy APP VM All modes except pupil tracking no pipeline support Prism Spectroscopy VM Limited setups LGS SM and VM See Section 4 2 3 LGS SE SM and VM See Section 4 2 3 Pupil Tracking SM and VM Simple Imaging SDI APP Lyot and 4QPM 42 Visitor Mode must be requested for programmes requiring special calibrations i e calibrations not defined in the NACO Calibration Plan see Section 6 10 3 SM proposals require a detailed justification for the need for SM and will be considered on a case by case basis as part of the technical feasibility evaluation of the Observatory See Section 6 10 3 for details Imaging Polarimetric and Coronagraphic Modes Imaging polarimetry and coronagraphy can be done with a variety of filters pixel scales and fields of view Table 12 Table 12 NACO pixel scales and fields of view Wavelength range Scale mas pix FOV arcsec SW filters 54 3 56x56 SW filters 27 0 28x 28 SW filters 13 3 14x14 NB_4 05 NB_3 74 54 7 56x 56 NB_4 05 NB_3 74 L 27 1 28x 28 1 For reference the diffraction limited FWHM of a point source imaged with an 8m telescope are J 32 mas H 42 mas Ks 56 mas L 98 mas and M 123 mas 2 Short Wavelength S
133. ng with chopping 40 ISAACAI Spectroscopy with chopping 30 11 ISAAC Night time flat one on off pair 4 ISAAC Night time arc one on off pair 3 ISAAC Burst and FastJitter Modes See the Burst web page VIMOS IMG acquisition Instrument setup 3 VIMOS MOS acquisition Instrument setup 15 VIMOS IFU acquisition Instrument setup 10 VIMOS Read out IMG MOS IFU 4 quadrants 1 VIMOS Change of Filter IMG 3 VIMOS Attached screen flat arc IFU MOS 5 8 VISIR Imaging target acquisition incl setup VISIR fine acquisition gt 1 Jy source 5 VISIR blind preset lt 1 Jy source 2 VISIR Imaging read out chopping 50 of int time VISIR Burst read out nod chopping 80 of int time VISIR Spectroscopy target acquisition incl setup VISIR gt 1Jy source 15 VISIR 0 2 1 Jy source 30 VISIR Spectroscopy read out nod chopping 50 of int time 7 The detectors are read sequentially see User Manual for details 8 ISAAC refers to both Aladdin and Hawaii ISAACHw only to Hawaii detector ISAACAI only to Aladdin detector 9 For the Aladdin SW J Block H K and LW low background NB_3 21 and NB_3 28 fi 10 In Medium Resolution MR only 11 Global overheads in are used for the LW imaging and spectroscopic chopping templates 12 When required see the Calibration Plan Page and the ISAAC user manual 13 Flat and arcs are mandatory for IFU and MOS ters only 57 Table 18 Telescope and Instruments Overheads continued
134. nned spectroscopy 0 7 FORS2 Read out 200kHz binned imaging 0 5 CRIRES Acquisition without AO 3 CRIRES Acquisition with AO 5 CRIRES Read out 10 60 exposure timel CRIRES Nodding cycle 0 4 CRIRES Change of wavelength setting 1 4 2 4 Bl CRIRES Change of derotator position angle 1 CRIRES Attached wavelength calibration 2 5 CRIRES Attached lamp flat 2 FLAMES Acquisition 9 FLAMES Instr Setup GIRAFFE 1 FLAMES Instr Setup UVES 1 FLAMES CCD read out GIRAFFE 1 FLAMES CCD read out UVES 1 FLAMES Screen Flatfields 7 FLAMES Plate Configuration 0 20 UVES Instrument Setup 1 UVES Acquisition Bright Point Source 2 UVES Acquisition Faint Extended or Crowded Field 5 UVES Read outl l 1 x 1 Fast 0 75 UVES Read out l 2 x 2 Slow 0 75 UVES Attached ThAr Night time 1 5 UVES Attached Flat Night time 2 Typically one cycle for cycle IMG and IPOL none the target acquisition exposure time of the acquisition image not included 1 MXU MOS and PMOS 2 min LSS IPOL ECH 1 5 min per cycle IMG none 2 Through slit exposures are mandatory for all spectroscopic OBs Two cycles are typically enough to centre the target on the slit exposure time of the through slit image not included MXU MOS PMOS LSS ECH 2 0 min per 3 See CRIRES User Manual for more details 6 In a dichroic exposure the f the exposure time is shorter than 20 minutes CCDs are read out in parallel 4 Includes configuration of U
135. ont sensor eXpanded Fast Fourier Transform Spectrometer UV Visual NIR medium resolution echelle spectrograph Redshift z and Early Universe Spectrometer Broadband millimeter wave Spectrometer end of document
136. oper justification must be provided if CAL SCI is requested instead of the standard CAL SCI CAL 6 13 5 Execution times For each Observing Block OB either SCI or CAL the proposer s should consider the following e Acquisition requires 10min in HR or MR 5 minutes in LR including the spectrograph setup and the recording of the calibration fringes so called P2VM See Table 18 for more details e Integration requires 15min A maximum of 3 integrations is allowed per OB which could consist in repeating 3 times the same integration or 3 integrations around 3 different central wavelengths within the same spectral setup Hence a normal CAL SCI CAL sequence requires 75min in MR or HR and 60min in LR When observing targets close to the limiting magnitude in MR or HR it is recommended to double or triple the integration and to focus on wavelength differential quantities Hence a SCI CAL sequence with triple integration requires 2x1h 2h Using a non standard DIT below 200ms in MR and HR or below 25ms in LR see Section 6 13 2 can strongly reduce the spectral coverage available within one integration To obtain measurements 49 at different position within the range of the spectrograph setup the user can use 2 or 3 integrations with different central wavelengths 6 14 VIRCAM VISTA InfraRed CAMera VISTA Section 4 2 5 is equipped with the near infrared camera VISTA InfraRed CAMera VIRCAM which covers a 1 65
137. or Mode using the UTs The background can be subtracted without residuals in the MIDI fringe exposures because it is fully correlated This is not possible for the photometry and for this reason good fringe data can be obtained for fainter magnitudes than good photometry data The correlated flux mode is suited for observations for which visibilities are not needed i e when one intends to compare them to correlated flux observations of the same object at other projected baselines This mode is only offered on the UTs with the PRISM and a limiting correlated flux of 0 2 Jy at 12 um see Section 6 12 for details Given the arrival of the second generation VLTI instruments ESO cannot guar antee the availability of MIDI after Period 91 In particular Large Programmes using MIDI beyond Period 91 will not be accepted VLTI Visitor instruments Given the arrival of the second generation VLTI instruments ESO cannot guarantee the availability of a VLTI visitor focus beyond Period 91 In particular Large Programmes using a VLTI visitor instrument beyond Period 91 will not be accepted VST and OmegaCAM The VLT Survey Telescope VST and OmegaCAM entered in operations in October 2011 Please note that only GTO and Chilean normal programme proposals are accepted in the current period Sects 11 4 amp 13 1 No Large Programme proposals will be accepted for VST and OmegaCAM in Period 90 VIRCAM In Period 90 only a limited amount of open tim
138. out Paranal data handling and processing e g zero points colour terms wavelength solutions is maintained on the ESO Quality Control web pages The Quality Control Group also maintains the Health Check Monitor with information and data about actual and historical instrument performance and trending 10 5 The ESO Science Data Products Forum The ESO Science Data Products Forum is a platform for sharing ideas methods software and data to assist with the production of science data products from ESO telescopes The forum is a service for the ESO community Contributions are by users of the ESO instruments Users are encouraged to contribute on any topic related to the reduction calibration and analysis of science data from ESO instruments Posts might simply describe problems encountered with the data reduction or offer solutions to such problems Software calibration data or documents up to 100MB in size can be attached to any post 61 Part III Proposal Types Policies and Procedures 11 Proposal Types For Period 90 the list of proposal types is e Normal Programmes Large Programmes Target of Opportunity Guaranteed Time Observations Calibration Programmes Director s Discretionary Time All proposals except Director s Discretionary Time DDT proposals must be submitted by the current deadline DDT proposals may be submitted at any time Only the Normal and Large Programme template forms should be used for
139. place and that Service Mode observations are allowed on that telescope Raw data are available for download shortly after acquisition Please note that VM proposers must include overheads for all science exposures Guidelines are provided in Section 9 12 1 1 ToO programme execution during VM observations VM observations may be interrupted by time critical DDT or ToO programmes As far as possible the execution of observations for such programmes will be confined to scheduled Service Mode periods Under exception circumstances the Director of the Observatory may decide to interrupt VM runs to allow Service Mode observations ToO runs in the Rapid Response Mode RRM may also interrupt VM observations see Section 11 3 1 12 2 Service Mode About 60 of the total time available for observations on Paranal will be carried out in Service Mode SM SM is also the only mode supported for APEX VST and VISTA It is not offered on any La Silla telescope Investigators with runs allocated in SM time will be required to specify their programme by sub mitting to ESO a Phase 2 package in advance This package consists of OBs finding charts and a Readme form Observers intending to submit proposals to be executed in SM may find it useful to familiarize themselves with the Phase 2 Service Mode procedures Once the OBs are completed they will be submitted to ESO for verification and acceptance Accepted OBs will be executed by ESO staff based o
140. point source of zero colour AOV star giving S N 5 Fringing in the red is negligible with the new CCDs The magnitude limits in MOS mode and IFU mode should be obtained using the Exposure Time Calculator http www eso org observing etc to test the proposed programme s feasibility and the corresponding execution time The observing overheads are given in Table 18 and more details are given in the VIMOS web pages Note For MOS runs ESO will consider OBs as successfully executed when at least 3 of the 4 quadrants are operational and work within specifications 36 Table 8 VIMOS Period 90 offered settings and modes Mode Scale FOV Wavelength A AA Dispersion Spectral range nm H A pix multiplex IMG UBVRIz 0 205 pix 4x7 x 8 MOS LR Blue 0 205 pix 4 x 7 x 8 370 670 180 53 4 MOS LR Red 0 205 pix 4 x 7 x 8 550 950 210 7 3 4 MOS MR 0 205 pix 4 x 7 x 8 480 1000 580 2 5 1 MOS HR Blue old 0 205 pix 4 x 7 x 8 415 620 2050 0 5 1 MOS HR Blue new 0 205 pix 4 x 7 x 8 370 552 1470 0 76 1 MOS HR Orange 0 205 pix 4 x 7 x 8 520 760 2150 0 6 1 MOS HR Red 0 205 pix 4x 7 x 8 630 870 2500 0 6 1 IFU LR Blue 0 67 fibre 54 x 54 390 670 220 5 3 4 IFU LR Red 0 67 fibre 54 x 54 580 915 260 7 3 4 IFU MR 0 67 fibre 27 x 27 490 1015 720 2 5 1 IFU HR Blue old 0 67 fibre 27 x 27 415 620 2550 0 5 1 IFU HR Blu
141. precision These relative astrometric calibrations are fulfilled if your FIMS preparation is based on images taken with FORS1 after March 22 2003 or on any FORS2 images An important exception is multi object spectroscopy with unbinned CCD readout modes users wishing to apply for this mode must request additional pre imaging even if previous FORS1 or FORS2 images are available If images of adequate quality are not available Phase 1 proposers must apply for pre imaging defined as a separate run in the Phase 1 proposal and clearly marked as pre imaging PRE IMG in the Instrument configuration section of the proposal Failure to do so will result in the deduction of the pre imaging time from the time allocation assigned to the main project if the programme is approved for execution As a rule pre imaging runs are carried out in Service Mode even for programmes whose main spectroscopic runs are conducted in Visitor Mode For further information FORS2 proposers should visit the FORS web page 6 3 FLAMES Fibre Large Array Multi Element Spectrograph FLAMES is the multi object intermediate and high resolution spectrograph of the VLT Mounted at the Nasmyth A platform of UT2 FLAMES can access targets over a large corrected field of view 25 diameter It consists of three main components e A Fibre Positioner OzPoz hosting two plates while one plate is observing the other positions the fibres for the subsequent observations
142. r OB is permitted in IFU mode Users who want to observe the same targets with different filter grism combinations are requested to submit separate OBs for different filter grism combinations and to consider the respective overheads 38 6 8 VISIR VLT Imager and Spectrometer for mid Infra Red VISIR is the mid infrared imager and spectrometer at the Cassegrain focus of UT3 It operates in the wavelength ranges 8 13 um and 17 24 um Important note VISIR will undergo a major intervention during Period 89 currently scheduled to take place between May and September 2012 The upgrade project includes the replacement of the old DRS detector with the new Aquarius arrays Moreover it includes an intervention on the low resolution spectroscopy mode in order to provide complete N band coverage in a single shot Details are available on the ESO VISIR instrument page The intervention recommissioning and a performance validation phase are planned to be completed by the end of Period 89 Hence VISIR will have resumed regular operations by the start of Period 90 6 8 1 Imaging Modes In Period 90 the imager with a 1024 x 1024 detector array is offered with image scales of 0045 pixel SF and 0 0762 pixel IF The filters available are PAH1 ArlII SIV_1 SIV SIV_2 PAH2 SiC PAH2 2 NelL 1 Nell NelL 2 Q1 Q2 Q3 B8 7 B9 7 B10 7 B11 7 B12 4 J7 9 38 9 J9 8 and J12 2 The offered sensitivities correspond to the old detector The
143. re are two important requirements to use the photometry mode 1 the positions should be known with an accuracy of lt 1 and 2 the sources should not have other emission within the wobbler throw radius For mapping the main advantages of the spiral modes are that 1 the scanned area is only slightly larger than the LABOCA field of view leading to a maximum of integrations on the central 11 field 53 of view and 2 the overheads by the telescope control system are much smaller as the spirals use a continuous data taking mode while there is a dead time when the telescope turns at the edges of the OTF maps The optimal observing pattern depends on the spatial extent of the source to be imaged Recommendations are provided on the APEX home page www apex telescope org bolometer laboca observing For integration time calculations users should assume the following values Noise Equivalent Flux Density NEFD 120 mJy s and 230 working bolometers For point source detection experiments one can apply a low frequency sky noise filtering improving the sensitivity to NEFD 75 mJy s All proposers should use the LABOCA observing time calculator available from www apex telescope org bolometer laboca obscalc This tool allows one to calculate the total integration time required to reach a given RMS or the RMS for a given total integration time Users should always include the generic 65 overhead factor provided by the calcul
144. requested during these ESO periods Applications are invited for the Swedish Heterodyne Facility Instrument SHFI the 870 um LABOCA bolometer array and the 350 ym SABOCA bolometer array and in collaboration with MPIER the PI instrument FLASH 280 370 GHz sideband separating receiver Observations will be done for up to 24 hours per day but users should be aware that afternoon conditions are of ten significantly worse than those during the night or morning Observations using high frequency instruments SHFI APEX T2 SHFI APEX 3 SABOCA should avoid the afternoon time All ob servations will be done in Service Mode by the local APEX staff In exceptional cases e g moving targets remote observing from Bonn in collaboration with MPIfR can be considered No Visitor Mode proposals will be accepted for APEX Note that due to the ongoing commissioning of the APEX instrumentation the APEX schedule and instrument availability can be subject to change at short notice The wobbling secondary is offered for all SHFI proposals The wobbler can also be used with LABOCA and SABOCA to obtain sensitive observations of isolated point sources with accurately known positions The APEX wobbler can chop in azimuth up to 300 with rates up to 2 Hz Because the LABOCA detectors need to be cooled to 0 3K using liquid Helium the LABOCA observations will be scheduled in continuous blocks of observing time This will make time critical observations during E
145. rument must already be in operation No change of instrument and tele scope focus is accepted by the automatic RRM system e RRM activations will be accepted during Service Mode and Visitor Mode runs They have overriding priority over other observations unless the latter are strictly time critical Additionally the following instrument specific restrictions apply e UVES can only be used with standard wavelength settings e ISAAC can only be used in the SW imaging and SW spectroscopic modes e FORS2 can only be used in the broad band imaging long slit spectroscopic imaging polari metric and spectro polarimetric modes e SINFONI is available in NGS and noAO mode but not in LGS mode e HAWK I all the filters can be used but the trigger requesters must follow the users manual indications closely as far as brightness restrictions of objects in the field are concerned The delivery of the encoded alerts to the Paranal Observatory is entirely the responsibility of the PI Successful PIs will be asked to provide a set of OBs by the Phase 2 deadline to be certified for execution as is done for other Service Mode runs Details on the activation mechanisms and the preparation of RRM observations can be found at the Phase 2 RRM Observation page 11 4 Guaranteed Time Observations Guaranteed Time Observations GTO arise from contractual obligations of ESO vis a vis the external consortia who build ESO instruments see the GTO Policy p
146. ry site For both Visitor Mode and Service Mode observations raw science data and associated calibration data are distributed to the PIs and their delegates from their ESO User Portal accounts 13 8 Publication of ESO telescope results Publications based on observations collected at ESO telescopes should state this in a footnote to the article s title The corresponding observing proposal should be clearly identified by its ESO reference 72 number For example Based on observations collected at the European Southern Observatory Chile ESO Programme 090 C 1234 13 9 Press Releases Should you consider that your results are worthy of a press release to the general public please contact the ESO Outreach Department information eso org as soon as possible preferably no later than when the paper is submitted for publication ESO reserves the right to use any data obtained with ESO telescopes as part of programmes allocated ESO time for press releases Part IV 73 Appendix A Acronyms 4QPM ADP AMBER APEX APEX SZ APP AT CHAMP Col CONICA CRIRES DDT DIT DPS EIS EFOSC2 ESO ETC FEROS FLASH FFTS FIMS FINITO FLAMES FLASH FLI FORS1 FORS2 FOV GTC GTO HARPS HAWK I IB IFU IR ISAAC KMOS LABOCA LADC LGS LST Four Quadrant Phase Mask Advanced Data Products Astronomical Multi BEam combineR Atacama Pathfinder EXperiment APEX Sunyaev Zel Dovich camera Apodizing Phase Plate Auxil
147. s in the light beam HARPS polarimetric data are reduced by the online pipeline Up to date information and documentation on the instrument including the user manual and ex posure time calculator are available on the HARPS web page 5 4 FEROS Fibre fed Extended Range Optical Spectrograph on the 2 2 m FEROS is ESO s high resolution high efficiency spectrograph on the 2 2 m telescope It is a bench mounted thermally controlled prism cross dispersed chelle spectrograph providing in a single spectrogram spread over 39 orders almost complete spectral coverage from 350 to 920nm at a resolution of 48 000 The available ESO time slots at the 2 2 m telescope as defined in Section 4 1 need to be taken into account for proposal preparation FEROS is offered in Visitor Mode only The spectrograph is fed by two fibres allowing simultaneous spectra of an object and either the sky or a calibration source normally a wavelength calibration lamp The fibres are illuminated via apertures of 2 0 and are separated by 2 9 The mechanical and thermal stability of FEROS is such that the wavelength calibration obtained during the day is sufficiently accurate for most purposes Additional night time calibrations are not necessary Although not intended as a radial velocity machine precise radial velocity work accuracies of 25m s or better is possible especially via the Object Calibration mode A dedicated pipeline provides
148. s the complete wavelength range 300 1100 nm can be covered The resolving power is 40 000 when a 1 slit is used The maximum two pixel resolution is 80 000 or 110 000 in the Blue and the Red Arm while using a 0 4 and 0 3 slit respectively Three image slicers are available to obtain high resolving power without excessive slit losses The instrument is built for maximum mechanical stability and therefore allows accurate calibration of the wavelength scale The UVES instrument modes offered in Period 90 are listed in Table 5 This table is intended as a quick guide only for detailed information proposers should refer to the UVES Users Manual and Exposure Time Calculator ETC available through the UVES web page Table 5 indicates for a given mode the accessible wavelength range the maximum resolving power that can be obtained the approximate wavelength range covered in one exposure and an estimate of the limiting magnitude Please note that for each instrument mode standard settings have been defined in Service Mode only UVES standard settings are allowed Visitor Mode observers are encouraged to use the specially defined UVES standard settings The magnitude limits listed in Table 5 are estimated on the basis of the following conditions continuum source 0 7 seeing 1 slit no binning 3 hour integration S N of 10 per resolution element at the peak of the central order no moon They are indicative of the limiting
149. s using ISAAC and or NACO will not be accepted Large Programmes As in previous periods no Large Programmes will be accepted for the 2 2 m VISTA or VST telescopes In Period 90 Large Programmes are also not offered for the following VLT instruments ISAAC NACO CRIRES HAWK I VIMOS in Period 90 These restrictions are due to the following reasons x VIMOS has a significant number of existing commitments ISAAC and NACO will be removed to allow the installation of the second generation VLT instruments SPHERE and MUSE x CRIRES and HAWK I are not offered due to possible future changes Additionally Large Programmes for MIDI and or the VLTI visitor instrument must not request periods beyond Period 91 due to the arrival of the second generation VLTI instruments ESO GTC Large Programmes There will be no further calls for ESO GTC Large Programmes The titles and target lists of these approved programmes are listed on the following page Targets for approved ESO GTC Programmes Guaranteed Time Observations GTO will be carried out in Period 90 with AMBER HARPS MIDI NACO OmegaCAM XSHOOTER and the VLTI Visitor Instrument For details about the planned observations please see http www eso org sci observing visas gto 90 html Instrument characteristics summary The main characteristics of all La Silla Paranal and Chajnantor instruments offered in this call are available in the ESO Instruments Summary Table
150. sal form Requests for the usage of the 3 6 m and NTT telescope for the execution of Large Programmes are encouraged The maximum duration for Large Programmes with these telescopes is four years However users should be aware of the limited possibilities of approval of new Large Programmes on the 3 6 m and NTT telescopes in Periods 90 as described in Section 1 1 Large Programme proposals are not accepted for the 2 2 m telescope Technical and logistical support is delivered as usual by ESO staff on the mountain However no support astronomer is available on site in general General information can be found on the La Silla web page Proposers are also strongly advised to read the La Silla Science Operations page which pro vides updated information on support and procedures The median seeing in La Silla is 0 8 and the sky is photometric 70 of the time For more information take a look at La Silla weather statistics e NTT telescope The New Technology Telescope is an Alt Az 3 5 m Ritchey Chr tien tele scope housed in a rotating building designed for optimized air flow Its thin meniscus Zerodur mirror is controlled in order to maintain the optical figure so that the total aberrations are smaller than 0 15 80 encircled energy the NTT was the first telescope to be equipped with Active Optics The instruments Sofl and EFOSC2 are permanently mounted at the two Nasmyth foci The telescope has a pointing accuracy of
151. sal submission Please make sure that the start and end dates of suitable observation windows comply with the applicable time specification convention and that the amount of requested time in the ObservingRun macro fits within the length of the slots indicated in the TimeCritical macro If several suitable date intervals are acceptable for a particular run e g transits of extrasolar planets this macro should be repeated as many times as there are adequate alter native observation dates Further details and examples of the correct usage are shown in the ESOFORM User Manual e For Period 90 it will not be possible to apply for VLT XMM time VLT XMM proposals will be invited again in Period 91 If the proposal is a re submission of an old proposal then OPC comments must be addressed in this new submission 3 2 2 Observing conditions definitions Observing conditions are defined as follows e Sky Transparency Photometric No visible clouds transparency variations under 2 only assessable by the analysis of photometric standard stars Clear Less than 10 of the sky above 30 degrees elevation covered in clouds trans parency variations under 10 Thin cirrus transparency variations above 10 e Seeing Seeing is defined as the image FWHM in arcsec at the wavelength of observation on the focal plane of the instrument s detector i e after the image has been taken through the entire telescope and instrument It
152. sed standard stars to correct for this For imaging a set of standard Bessell and Gunn filters as well as several narrow band filters are available See the EFOSC2 filter page for details Up to date information and documentation on the instrument are available on the EFOSC2 web page 5 2 1 ESO Public Spectroscopic Surveys In Period 90 there will be up to 60 NTT nights assigned to the ESO Public Spectroscopic Survey entitled PESSTO Public ESO Spectroscopic Survey for Transient Objects Further details are available on the ESO Public Surveys Projects webpage Proposers should check that their sci ence goals do not duplicate those of this public survey 5 3 HARPS High Accuracy Radial velocity Planetary Search on the 3 6 m HARPS is the ESO facility for the measurement of very precise radial velocities It is fed by two fibres from the Cassegrain focus of the 3 6 m telescope HARPS is offered in Visitor Mode only during Period 90 The instrument is built to obtain very precise radial velocities 1m s To achieve this goal HARPS is designed as an chelle spectrograph fed by a pair of fibres and is contained in a vacuum vessel to avoid spectral drift due to temperature and air pressure variations One of the two fibres collects the starlight while the second is used to either record a Th Ar reference spectrum or the background sky simultaneously The two HARPS fibres object sky or Th Ar have a sky aperture of 1
153. ssions of the filters range from 70 to 90 In July 2009 the MIT CCD was replaced by an improved version that offers less fringing and higher throughput redwards of 800 nm See the UVES news page for details Proposals for the very red end of the UVES range around 1 micron should consider whether CRIRES would be better suited A detailed comparison of UVES and CRIRES performance around 1 micron is given on the CRIRES news page For more detailed information on instrument setups and performance estimates the user is referred to the UVES web page 6 5 XSHOOTER multi band medium resolution chelle spectrograph XSHOOTER the first VLT second generation instrument is the UV Visual NIR medium resolu tion spectrograph mounted at the UT2 Cassegrain focus Three arms each with optimized optics dispersive elements and detectors allow high efficiency observation simultaneously in the wavelength range 300 2480 nm Each arm is an independent cross dispersed chelle spectrograph complete with its own shutter and or slit mask The incoming light is split into the three different spectrographs arms through 2 dichroics that have cut off wavelengths at 5595A for the separation of UVB VIS light and 10240A for the separation of the VIS NIR light Three piezo controlled mirrors located in front of each arm guarantee that the optical path remains aligned against instrument flexure and corrected for differential atmospheric refraction betwe
154. t more time including all operational overheads for additional user defined calibrations Important note For some instrument modes calibrations need to be obtained immediately after the science observation by means of attached calibration templates Such attached calibrations are an integral part of the science OB and are not considered as a part of the calibration plan Their execution time must therefore be included in the time applied for Visitor Mode runs Night time calibrations are the responsibility of the visiting observer with the following exception up to approximately 30 minutes per night will be used by the observatory staff to obtain standard ESO calibrations The ESO obtained data will be used to monitor instrument performance and to assure a baseline calibration accuracy within the ESO Science Archive ESO does not guarantee that these standard calibration data will be sufficient to calibrate the Visitor Mode science observations to the accuracy desired by the observer Visitor Mode proposers should plan accordingly Raw science data and associated calibrations are made available to the respective PIs and delegates through the ESO Science Archive Facility The CalSelector archive service packs together all the files needed to process the science data including ancillary files e g acquisition images etc More information on the CalSelector can be found at http www eso org sci archive calselectorInfo html La Silla
155. t Object Spectrograph and Camera 2 on the NTT EFOSC2 is a very versatile instrument for low resolution spectroscopy and imaging in the visi ble and near UV It also has polarimetric capabilities both for imaging and spectroscopy and a coronagraphic mode and it can efficiently perform multi object spectroscopy EFOSC2 is only offered in Visitor Mode The instrument is equipped with a Loral Lesser UV flooded 2kx2k CCD The pixel size is 0 12 with a corresponding field of view of 4 1 The grisms cover the 318 1100nm wavelength range with resolutions ranging from 100 to 1000 Slits from 0 5 to 15 are available Two volume phase holographic grisms VPHG have been offered for medium resolution spec troscopy The blue grism 19 covers the wavelength range from 440 nm to 510 nm at a resolution of up to 4000 with a 0 5 slit while the red grism 20 covers the range 605 nm to 715 nm at a resolution of up to 4000 with the 0 5 slit The grisms introduce a lateral shift of the beam so the effective field of view is 3 1 and 2 7 for the blue and red VPHGs respectively The wavelength range of the blue VPHG grism 19 can be extended to cover a more useful range e g reaching the Mg triplet at 520 nm or the G band at 430 nm by using slits offset to the red or blue With 15 mm offsets corresponding to wavelength offsets of 21 8 nm the wavelength range coverage for the grism 19 is 418 nm to 532 nm the full range is a
156. t the science target itself and usually closer than 10 The NGS can be chosen to be as far as 30 away from the science target or as far as 60 but with some constraints on the field orientation and depending on atmospheric conditions the AO system can still provide a mild improvement in the encircled energy The name of the NGS must be specified in the target list of the Phase 1 proposal using the ESOFORM proposal template The LGS mode see Section 4 2 3 for additional details can be used with or without a tip tilt star In Period 90 the LGS mode of SINFONI is offered in Service and Visitor Mode If a tip tilt star TTS is used it should be in the R magnitude range 12 18 and can be as far away as 60 from the science target However performance decreases with increasing distance and there are some constraints on the field orientation The name of the TTS must be specified in the target list of the Phase 1 proposal using the ESOFORM proposal template The LGS mode without a tip tilt star the so called seeing enhancer mode is also offered Users requesting this mode must specify CLR or better for the transparency and a seeing better than 0 8 in their Phase 1 application In the target list of the Phase 1 proposal using the ESOFORM proposal template the TTS name should be left blank Since Period 87 users of this mode requiring observation of a PSF calibrator associated with a science target must make use of the template SIN
157. te OBs for different filter grism combinations and to consider the respective overheads 6 7 3 MOS Observations in Visitor Mode Because MOS observations should be carried out within 2h of the meridian targets must be uni formly distributed in RA for the night s of the Visitor Mode observations If this is not possible users should apply for Service Mode observations A maximum number of 7 visitor masks per quadrant will be made available each night with only 3 masks per quadrant for half night runs Users should submit OBs for mask preparation well before their observing run so that masks can be manufactured before they arrive Visitor Mode VM observers who wish to use VIMOS in MOS mode are required to submit part of their OBs at least 3 weeks before the first night of the VM run Exceptionally limited additional support is guaranteed for mask preparation on the mountain up to 3 sets of masks per night to be prepared at least 48h in advance 6 7 4 VIMOS Observation Requirements in IFU Mode In IFU mode instrumental flexures introduce flatfield residuals and wavelength calibration offsets if the calibration data and the science data are taken at very different rotator angles In order to minimise these effects attached night time arcs and screen flats are mandatory in IFU mode for all settings The corresponding overheads need to be taken into account at Phase 1 and can be estimated using Table 18 Only one filter grism combination pe
158. ted by the end of Period 90 ESO will decide whether they can be declared substantially complete or have to be carried over to the next period provided that this is technically feasible In general a class A run will not be carried over for more than one additional natural visibility period Class B and C runs will not be carried over ToO runs are by definition Class A regarding priority in execution but they will not be carried over to the following periods regardless of their completion status 13 5 Phase 2 Service Mode policy constraints and targets are binding To optimize the use of ESO telescopes in Service Mode a proper mix of runs requiring various observing conditions and with targets spread over the entire range of RAs for a given period is necessary For this reason proposers are requested in their Phase 1 proposal to specify not only the targets with accurate coordinates but also the needed observing conditions lunar phase seeing sky transparency Due to their essential role in determining the long term scheduling of Service Mode time the constraints specified at Phase 1 are binding Successful proposers will not be allowed to change the instrument set ups target lists and or times per target that were requested at Phase 1 in their Phase 2 submissions unless explicitly authorized by ESO see Section 13 4 At Phase 2 only the relaxation of observing constraints is allowed See Section 13 4 for more details on how to request
159. ted guess of the RA demand expected during Period 90 Note that during Period 90 the distribution of instruments on the UTs will be UT1 CRIRES FORS2 UT2 FLAMES UVES XSHOOTER UT3 ISAAC VIMOS VISIR UT4 HAWK I NACO SINFONI Proposers should take advantage of this information in choosing targets to maximize the probability of the allocation of time and successful execution of their runs see Fig 3 Proposers should also consider the time expected to be allocated in Period 90 to ongoing Large Programmes started in earlier periods Fig 4 2 2 Exposure Time Calculators Exposure Time Calculators ETCs for ESO instruments are accessible directly on the ESO Web For La Silla and Paranal instrumentation 12 30 25 20 2 B UT2 5D E UT3 215 a GVLTI_AT 2 3 6m ENTT 10 E APEX 5 0 00 30 02 30 04 30 06 30 08 30 10 30 12 30 Right Ascension Figure 4 The expected time allocation in nights for ongoing Large Programmes in Period 90 This includes time allocated to Public Spectroscopic Surveys on UT2 and NTT and runs carried over from previous periods on UT3 Telescopes with no ongoing Large Programmes do not appear in this figure The RA bins are defined as for Figs 2 and 3 http www eso org observing etc For APEX instrumentation please go to http www apex telescope org instruments Links to useful proposal preparation software tools e g the Object Observability Cal
160. ted on the NTT It is equipped with a Hawaii HgCdTe 1024x1024 detector Sofl is only offered for Visitor Mode observations and has the following observing modes e Imaging with plate scales of 0 273 and 0 288 pixel using broad and narrow band filters in the wavelength range 0 9 2 5 um Sofl provides a field of view of 4 92 A Js filter similar to that on ISAAC is available in addition to the standard J filter 23 e High time resolution imaging in Burst and FastPhot mode with integration times of the order of a few tens of milliseconds via hardware windowing of the detector array Information about technical details restrictions and overheads is available in the Soff user manual e Low resolution R 600 0 93 2 54 um spectroscopy with fixed width slits of 0 6 1 and 2 e Medium resolution R 1500 spectroscopy with the same fixed width slits e 0 9 2 5 micron imaging polarimetry Up to date information and documentation on the instrument are available at http www eso org sci facilities lasilla instruments sofi 5 1 1 ESO Public Spectroscopic Surveys In Period 90 there will be up to 60 NTT nights assigned to the ESO Public Spectroscopic Survey entitled PESSTO Public ESO Spectroscopic Survey for Transient Objects Further details are available on the ESO Public Surveys Projects webpage Proposers should check that their sci ence goals do not duplicate those of this public survey 5 2 EFOSC2 ESO Fain
161. trograph 6 6 ISAAC Infrared Spectrometer And Array Camera 2 05 6 7 VIMOS VIsible Multi Object Spectrograph o o 6 7 1 VIMOS Observation Requirements IMG _ o 6 7 2 VIMOS observation requirements MOS and pre imaging 6 7 3 MOS Observations in Visitor Mode o e 6 7 4 VIMOS Observation Requirements in IFU Mode 6 8 VISIR VLT Imager and Spectrometer for mid Infra Red 08 1 masias Modest lt br sa aaa a a HR e SS 6 8 2 Spectroscopy Modes sss o e e wi oe a a O88 Calibrations ocio e ado pde ai A es i BAS 6 8 4 Exposure Time Calculator gt s sa s ss cia sesrs aaa nwu Eea eaa 6 9 HAWK I High Acuity Wide field K band Imager oaoa a 6 0 0 Filters and held of view o es ortur a a a a A E a a 6 9 2 Observing modes adi a 4 a e e a ee ee EE we a a aha 6 9 3 Brightness limit and persistence o oo a 6094 Limiting magnitudes 0 sics aac ee a eta oe le ee a a a a 6 10 NACO TNAOS CONICA cos oia e c WAR Se eee a a a 6 10 1 Adaptive optics correction with Natural and Laser Guide Stars 6 10 2 Offered Modes cone rr eR eo Oe Ge RE OE Ges 6 10 3 NACO Calibration plan and special calibrations 6 11 SINFONI Spectrograph for INtegral Field Observations in the Near Infrared 6 111 Instrument Perreriance e s ace qs ow ee Rice Re A a ee 611 2 Brightness Limits so vi e 64
162. ture Trec around 135 K Observations at these frequencies generally require PWV lt 2 mm conditions e APEX 3 a Double Side Band DSB SIS receiver covering 385 500 GHz with DSB Tec around 110K This receiver is offered in Period 90 conditional to a successful intervention to improve the baseline stability Observations in this frequency range require the best quartile of precipitable water vapour conditions PWV lt 0 5 mm Only a limited amount of observing time will be available on APEX 3 so proposals should be self contained and the requested amount of time should be modest e APEX T2 a Double Side Band DSB Hot Electron Bolometer HEB receiver operating at 1 25 1 39 THz with DSB Tre around 1200K APEX T2 is offered conditional to a succesful repair of one of the Local Oscillator units planned in February March 2012 THz observations require excellent weather conditions PWV lt 0 2 mm APEX T2 proposals should therefore be very short and concentrate on bright sources Further information on the SHFI receivers can be found on the APEX instrumentation pages Since June 2011 SHFI uses the 2 new XFFTS units as back end These new units cover the full 4 GHz intermediate frequency bandwidth with a fixed overlap region of 1 GHz in the centre Each XFFTS unit provides 32768 spectral channels with a separation of 76kHz 0 1km s For exposure time calculations users should use the SHFI observing time calculator Note that the time needed to se
163. ty improvement is seen with stars as faint as R 16 mag under good seeing FWHM lt 0 6 conditions Important note Large Programmes using CRIRES will not be accepted in Period 90 The main optical elements consist of a prism acting as a pre disperser and a 31 6 lines mm chelle grating Total spectral coverage per individual wavelength setting is 4 70 thanks to an array of four 1024 x 512 Aladdin III detectors Acquisition and guiding are performed by the means of a slit viewer equipped with an additional Aladdin III detector and a series of five filters J H K and two neutral density H filters Possible slit widths are 0 2 and 0 4 providing a resolving power of R 100 000 and R 50 000 respectively Standard and free wavelength settings are offered for both Visitor Mode Section 12 1 and Service Mode Section 12 2 For settings shortward of 3m the blue and red ends of the wavelength coverage can be affected by contamination from adjacent orders and lack of illumination reproducibility Tables 4 and 5 of the User Manual report the spectral range free of these effects for 27 all standard settings Starting with Period 90 the implementation of the metrology system should ensure the reproducibility of the wavelength scale to sub pixel accuracy Despite the availability of a Krypton and ThAr lamps and of the N2O and CO gas cells the lack of wavelength calibration lines still affect some settings During P89 a UNe lamp for wavelen
164. udy has a strong scientific justification and a plan for a quick and comprehensive effort of data reduction and analysis by a dedicated team e Large Programmes can span from 1 to 4 periods i e up to a maximum of two consecutive years for Paranal instruments and from 1 to 8 periods i e up to four consecutive years for La Silla e ToO programmes canot be submitted as Large Programmes Section 11 3 A good organizational structure of the proposing team availability of resources and relevant ex pertise must be demonstrated A special IATFX template must be used for Large Programmes Section 3 1 The proposers may use a total of three pages not including figures for the four sections of the scientific description A Scientific Rationale B Immediate Objective C Telescope Justification D Observing Mode Justification Visitor or Service An additional 2 pages of attachments are permitted Proposers of Large Programmes should keep in mind that the entire OPC hence also non experts in a specific field as well as the specialised OPC panels will be evaluating their proposal and that they should clearly explain the relevance of the proposed programme to general astrophysics If a Large Programme proposal contains runs requesting La Silla telescopes and instruments the duration of each such run must be at least 3 nights Proposers should be aware that the PIs of successful proposals for Large Programmes are required to provide a
165. use of the FPCS However we caution users that the long term behaviour is still under study A large fraction 60 of the available science time on the 3 6 m telescope is com mitted to ongoing Large Programmes in Period 90 see Fig 4 NTT A large fraction 60 of the available science time on the NTT telescope is committed to ongoing programmes see Fig 4 2 2 m Time is available on this telescope for proposals requesting observations to be executed during the slots assigned to ESO see Section 4 1 for details Proposers should take these time slots into account for the selection of the targets of their proposals Proposals for Large Programmes will not be accepted for this telescope e Chajnantor SHFI x The APEX 3 receiver covering 385 to 500 GHz is offered in Period 90 subject to a successful intervention to improve the baseline stability Please check the latest news page for updates The APEX T2 receiver is offered subject to a successful repair of one of the Local Oscillator units planned in February 2012 Please check the latest news page for updates Since June 2011 the expanded Fast Fourier Transform Spectrometer XFFTS is the default backend for SHFI The XFFTS covers the full 4 GHz bandwidth with 32768 channels and a channel separation of 76 kHz This system replaces the old FFTS more than doubling the bandwidth and improving the spectral resolution FLASH The 345 GHz channel is offered again in Per
166. ut in VM In exceptional cases SM observations that require special calibrations will be considered and only if the following informations are provided in the proposal e A comprehensive justification of the need for SM observations as opposed to VM e A detailed description of the calibration strategy and needs box 9 C of the proposal tem plates e Instrument setup s compatible with the special calibrations needs by uncommenting the provided lines box 14 of the proposal templates 6 11 SINFONI Spectrograph for INtegral Field Observations in the Near Infrared SINFONT is a near infrared 1 2 5 um integral field spectrograph fed by an adaptive optics AO module It is currently installed at the Cassegrain focus of UT4 The spectrograph operates with 4 gratings J H K H K with spectral resolutions of 2000 3000 and 4000 corresponding to the J H and K gratings respectively and R 1500 with the H K grating Each wavelength band fits fully onto the Hawaii 2RG 2kx2k detector The SINFONI field of view 44 on the sky is sliced into 32 slices The pre slit optics allows one to choose the width of the slices The choices are 250 mas 100 mas and 25 mas leading to fields of view of 8x8 3x3 and 0 8 x0 8 respectively Each one of the 32 slitlets is imaged onto 64 pixels of the detector Thus one obtains 32 x 64 2048 spectra of the imaged region of the sky The adaptive optics module of SINFONI can be used with n
167. vation Blocks OBs i e observing sequences specified by the astronomer which are based on templates provided by ESO VM investigators will be encouraged to construct their OBs before arriving on the site using P2PP At the telescope OBs can be created or further modified in real time at the telescope with the exception of VIMOS see Section 6 7 VM investigators will be required to arrive on Paranal before the start of their observing run as follows 24 hours for UVES and 48 hours for all other instruments On La Silla Visiting Astronomers shall arrive 1 to 2 days before the start of the observations and may leave the site up to 1 to 2 days after the end of their observing run according to the transportation schedule see the La Silla Science Operations page Note that programmes must be executed as specified and approved at Phase 1 The proposer should prepare a backup alternative pro gramme to be executed in place of the primary programme if the observing conditions are not ideal Section 4 2 2 The original science case and goals should be followed Such backup programmes must be approved by ESO prior to the observing run The corresponding requests must be submitted via the web based form available at http www eso org sci observing phase2 ProgChange If the conditions prevent the Visiting Astronomer s primary programme to be executed the telescope will be used for the execution of Service Mode observations assuming no backup programme is in
168. waivers for Service Mode runs 13 6 Pre imaging runs A separate run must be specified for a VLT programme requiring pre imaging If this is not specified in the proposal the time needed for the execution of the pre imaging will be deducted from the total allocation of the project Pre imaging runs are always scheduled in priority class A but must be specified as pre imaging runs as this will not occur automatically Please be sure to indicate the pre imaging character of the run by using the corresponding INSconfig macro in the PTX ESOFORM template 13 7 Data rights archiving data distribution All data obtained with ESO facilities are ESO property ESO grants a twelve month proprietary period for science and acquisition data to the PI of the programme as part of which these data were obtained This period applies to each data file individually For Visitor Mode runs it starts at the time of the observation while for Service Mode runs as soon as the data are made available to the PI or his her delegate Should you wish to specify a shorter period than the nominal 12 months in Period 90 please do so using the ProprietaryTime macro in the 4TfX ESOFORM template Raw data of Public Surveys calibration and technical data are not subjected to proprietary period and become publicly available as soon as they are ingested in the ESO Archive For Visiting Astronomers raw data will in general be made available before astronomers leave the observato
169. y range between about 4 and 20 mJy 100 1h in the N band and between about 50 and 150 mJy 100 1h in the Q band depending on the selected filter and image scale The Burst read out mode is offered in Visitor mode only for the imager It allows one to save every single DIT of the observation providing a time resolution of few tens milliseconds depending on the instrument setup Please refer to the VISIR Web pages for further details 6 8 2 Spectroscopy Modes The spectrometer is offered for N and Q band spectroscopy in the following modes e Low resolution LR mode with a resolution of R 225 for a 074 slit width in one setting that covers the full N band with sensitivity about 50 mJy 100 1h e Medium Resolution MR mode with a resolution of up to R 3600 in the N band for the wavelength ranges of 7 4 9 4 um and 10 2 13 0 um and with a resolution of R 1800 in the Q band for the wavelength ranges of 17 1 19 0 um and 19 9 20 3 um Sensitivities are between about 200 and 2000 mJy 100 1 h depending on the spectral range e High resolution HR mode with a resolution of R 15000 30000 at wavelengths near the H2 S4 Nell H2 S1 lines in longslit mode and a wider range of wavelengths including the H2 3 H2 2 ARII SIV Coll CIV Nell Coll Col PII Fell Nill SI NaIV HD 0 0 R 9 R 10 lines in cross dispersed mode Sensitivities are between about 2000 and 10000 mJy 100 1 h depe

ESO Call for Proposals – P90

Contents

Download Pdf Manuals

Related Search

Related Contents

ESO Call for Proposals &ndash; P90

Contents

Download Pdf Manuals

Related Search

Related Contents

ESO Call for Proposals – P90