ESO has been one of the founding fathers of the Virtual Observatory (VO),starting from 2000 when ESO and the Space Telescope European Coordinating Facility (ST-ECF) hosted the first EC-funded (Fifth Framework Programme, FP5) demonstration programme ASTROVIRTEL (2000-2003), and supporting, since, all European-wide and world-wide VO initiatives: the Astrophysical Virtual Observatory (AVO, 2002-2004), the Euro-VO (2004-present), and the International Virtual Observatory Alliance (IVOA, 2002-present).

ESO has tasked the Virtual Observatory Project Office (VOP) to implement the Virtual Observatory concept:

VOP is the contact point for all VO activities at ESO.

Responsibilities

Within ESO:

• Ensure implementation of IVOA standards (SIA.SSA.TAP, etc.) to support Interoperability of the ESO Science Archive, working with Archive and Data Product Departments.
• Providing VO requirements to the ESO Survey Team (EST) and to the related Catalog Facility project
• Virtual Observatory input to E-ELT FP7 project
• Synergy with the ESO ALMA Regional Centre (ARC) VO activities
• Development of the visual ESO archive browser (VirGO)
• Development of the Survey Visualisation and Monitoring Tool (SVMT)

Current projects:

• ESO leads the EURO-VO Facility Centre activities, including support to VO-enabled European astronomical projects and promotion of the use of the VO by means of VO Schools and tutorials
• ESO leads the VO-ICE Work Package 3: "Coordination of take-up activities";
• IVOA participation; feedback from and to ESO; currently, Paolo Padovani serves as IVOA Exec Chair.
• Euro-VO ICE (started September 2010)

Past projects:

• AIDA FP7 project (completed July 2010):
  • WP4 (Service activities of VO-enabled science services) lead: Research initiative, Science Advisory Committee, Science Workshops
  • WP5 (Outreach)
  • WP6 (Evolution of VO standards)
  • WP7 (Data access protocols and data models)
• DCA FP6 project (completed end 2008): Workshop organization, on-site support to data centres
• VOTECH FP6 project (completed end 2008): DS4 (user tools) lead, plus others

Virtual Observatory Project Office