For a list of all refereed VLT/I publications from Australian-led ESO proposals (updated monthly) since the start of the Strategic Partnership in 2017, please see the NASA/ADS link here.
For a list of all refereed VLT/I publications with 1 or more Australian authors (updated annually) since commissioning of the VLT, please see the NASA/ADS link here.
Note that to be included in the above lists, a paper has to meet the requirements of an ESO science paper as recommended by the Observatory Bibliographers Collaboration; namely it must be one where 1) data or data product(s) from ESO were used; and 2) the data or data product(s) formed the basis for reaching a new scientific conclusion.
| Period | 101 (Apr - Sep 2018) | 102 (Oct 2018 - Mar 2019) | 103 (Apr - Sep 2019) | 104 (Oct 2019 - Mar 2020) | 105 (Apr - Sep 2020) | 106 (Oct 2020 - Mar 2021) | 108 (Oct 2021 - Mar 2022) [6] | 109 (Apr-Sep 2022) | 110 (Oct 2022 - Mar 2023) | 111 (Apr - Sep 2023) | 112 (Oct 2023 - Mar 2024) | 113 (Apr - Sep 2024) | P114 (Oct 2024 - Mar 2025) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. of Australian-led proposals | 55 | 43 | 44 | 34 | 49 | 58 | 38 | 31 | 31 | 40 | 30 | 30 | 27 |
| Fraction of all ESO proposals | 6.1% | 4.7% | 4.8% | 3.7% | 5.8% | 5.4% | 4.0% | 3.5% | 3.6% | 4.8% | 3.4% | 3.8% | 3.1% |
| No. of runs requested [1] | 79 | 72 | 71 | 43 | 71 | 74 | 58 | 39 | 61 | 50 | 47 | 39 | 34 |
| No. of Large Programmes requested [2] | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | N/A | 1 | 2 | N/A | 3 | N/A | 0 | N/A | 2 |
| Service Mode hours requested | 900 | 793 | 1325 | 1277 | 1082 | 1462 | 1163 | 693 | 1118 | 656 | 271 | 299.5 | 643.7 |
| Visitor Mode hours requested | 426 | 584 | 297 | 160 | 97 | 188 | 85 | 3 | 3 | 101 | 266 | 225 | 225.6 |
| VLT/I hours requested | 1136 | 921 | 1296 | 1251 | 1116 | 1190 | 1064 | 696 | 1121 | 739 | 369 | 462.5 | 781.3 |
| Top 3 requested instruments (Runs requested, Hrs requested) | FLAMES (23, 361); MUSE (11, 173); X-shooter (11, 157) | HARPS (13, 432); FLAMES (18, 290); MUSE (11, 192) | MUSE (12, 475); FLAMES (19, 303); X-shooter (10, 187) | MUSE (15, 810); X-shooter (10, 124); UVES/FLAMES (3, 96 each) | UVES (11, 325); MUSE (16, 222); X-shooter (10, 212) | MUSE (22, 537); X-shooter (8, 166); UVES (7, 116) | X-shooter (8, 313); MUSE (12, 272); UVES (7, 174) | MUSE (16, 227); UVES (6, 216); X-shooter (6, 83) | MUSE (37, 762); ESPRESSO (13, 166); X-shooter (3, 47) | X-shooter (10, 241.9); MUSE (19, 177); ERIS (4, 110.7) | HARPS (8, 168); MUSE (14, 106.5); X-shooter (6, 102.1) | MUSE (9, 120.1); X-shooter (7, 111.9); ERIS (2, 89.5) | X-shooter (5, 268); MUSE (6, 216); ESPRESSO (9, 69) |
| SM Runs allocated | 20 | 16 | 13 | 11 | 22 | 14 | 21 | 14 | 13 | 17 | 10 | 15 | 10 |
| VM Runs allocated [7] | 7 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 3 |
| Total VLT/I time allocated | 348.5 hrs | 304 hrs | 144 hrs | 330 hrs | 493 hrs | 92 hrs [5] | 294 hrs | 278 hrs | 253 hrs | 375.3 hrs | 160.1 hrs | 234.5 hrs | 181.4 hrs |
| Australian share of VLT/I time [4] | 7.5% | 7.2% | 3.2% | 7.0% | 10.4% | ~2.1% [5] | 8.4% | 6.4% | 6.1% | 8.3% | 3.8% | 4.7% | 4.5% |
Notes to Table:
[1] A single proposal can request more than 1 run, e.g. 3 different instruments on 2 different telescopes = 3 runs.
[2] A Large Programme is one requiring a minimum of 100 hours of ESO telescope time, spread over 1 to 4 Periods. From Period 104 onwards, Large Programmes may only be submitted in even-numbered Periods.
[3] Since Australia has no set share of VLT time, the actual oversubscription is only known after the OPC has met.
[4] Fraction of all OPC-allocatable time on the 4 UTs (including VLTI time) allocated to Australian-led programmes, relative to the time allocated to ESO members states + Australia only. These fractions are calculated by the OPO in Dec each year for the 2 most recently completed Periods. For comparison Australia’s Net National Income is ~7.5% of the total for all ESO member states + Australia.
[5] New programs only; does not include the 114 hr of Australian Priority A programs from P105 carried over into P106 due to COVID shutdown, as well as the remaining 224 hrs of the MAGPI Large Program allocation from P104.
[6] The Period 107 Call for Proposals was canceled due to COVID-19 causing nearly all observing time in Period 105 to be lost.
[7] Due to COVID no Visitor Mode observations with observers traveling to Paranal were permitted in P105-109, though some Designated Visitor Mode runs were carried out.
ESO supplies AAL with telescope/instrument demand and time allocation data relating to Australian astronomers only to furnish the above statistics. Australian ESO applicant data is used only for statistical purposes, and will only be published or made available to other third parties such as AAL member institutions, in aggregated and anonymised form. Any user who wishes that their data not be used for such purposes is encouraged to contact us.
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ESO, within the implementation of its mission that is decided by its member states, is committed to the protection of personal data of the users. As ESO’s privileges and immunities include the inviolability of its premises and archives, personal data protection at/by ESO, including the rights of data subjects, follows some specific rules that are explained below.
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The Terms and Conditions for web pages under eso.org/public reiterate the same principles, illustrating how they might apply to various types of information accessed through ESO’s website, see extracts below:
Personal Data Protection Notice
ESO, within the implementation of its mission that is decided by its member states, is committed to the protection of personal data of the users of its website. As ESO’s privileges and immunities include the inviolability of its premises and archives, personal data protection at/by ESO, including the rights of data subjects, follows some specific rules that are explained below.
The data that users provide on the website will be used only for the purposes established here or provided on the specific notices of the sub-sites of the website. ESO will not collect data for commercial purposes.
Submitting data to ESO via the website is voluntary. By doing so, users grant ESO the permission to use the data for the intended purpose. It is noted that not providing certain data may result in ESO’s inability to provide the information or service requested by the user.
Personal data collected
Users may provide their personal data via the website to subscribe to ESO’s newsletters, publications and event announcements, for recruitment purposes, conference registrations, scientific collaborations; scientific user services; or to process user requests and enquiries, or to interact with ESO via email for scientific, organisational or other purposes. ESO will only use these personal data to provide the requested service, respond to user requests and enquiries, and will treat the data confidentially.
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ESO will hold your personal data for as long as it is considered necessary for the relevant purpose(s) for which the user provided the data.
When users registers for a User Portal account, they are asked to provide:
ESO’s general privacy policy states:
“There are various facilities accessible to the users on the ESO’s web pages. Some of these include forms where the user is requested to fill in some data or information on themselves (e.g. their e-mail address or name). In addition, our information services (www, ftp, mail/majordomo servers etc.) keep logs of certain information. ESO’s privacy policy can be stated simply:
We will not collect any personal information about you when you access our network services unless you choose to provide that information to us.
General
Information which the ESO maintains about our user community, such as e-mail addresses of observers and of mailing-list subscribers, is normally available only for internal access. Please note, however, that the archives of some e-mail discussion groups hosted by ESO are, by request of the group involved, publicly accessible. By posting to these discussion groups, you may therefore make public the e-mail address from which you posted.
E-mail addresses and other information obtained through any of the means below will NOT be sold or released to any third party, without prior written or authenticated e-mail consent from the owner of the information.”
