Meddelelser

2. februar 2018: Big Science is a term that encapsulates the way in which scientific progress increasingly relies on large-scale projects, often funded by national governments or groups of governments, leading to increasingly collaborative research and global, scientific projects. It relies on businesses large and small from all over the world, in areas ranging from cryogenics, superconductors, materials and electronics — as well as groundbreaking astronomical technologies. This is why ESO, along with some of Europe's largest international science organisations, including CERN, ESA, EMBL, ESRF and others, is participating in the Big Science Business Forum 2018 (BSBF2018), from 26–28 February 2018, in Copenhagen, Denmark. With more than 650 delegates from 25 countries, and representing more than 250 businesses and organisations from the Big Science landscape, BSBF2018 aims to be the first “one-stop-shop” for European business and other stakeholders to learn about the status and future of Europe’s Big Science organisations. ESO is a ...

2. februar 2018: ESO’s Studentship programme provides a valuable opportunity for astronomers of the future to gain experience at the most productive ground-based astronomical observatory in the world. PhD students work alongside senior astronomers and engineers in a creative, collaborative and truly international environment, in which their careers are encouraged to blossom. In ESOcast 149 we hear from some of ESO’s current students about their experience at ESO, and they offer their advice to those considering following in their footsteps. You can subscribe to the ESOcasts on iTunes, receive future episodes on YouTube or follow us on Vimeo. Many other ESOcast episodes are also available. Find out how to view and contribute subtitles to the ESOcast in multiple languages, or translate this video on YouTube.

1. februar 2018: ESO invites you to take part in AstroCamera 2018 — an international competition in support of popularising astronomy and astrophotography. The competition is organised by the Hewelianum Centre in Gdańsk, Poland. The winners will receive grants from the organisers. ESO, as one of the partners of the event, will award prizes in the form of books and DVDs for the entries that receive honourable mentions from the judges. Initially launched in 2011 to coincide with the 400th anniversary of the birth of the 17th century astronomer, Johannes Hevelius, the competition is open to all astronomy and astrophotography enthusiasts. The life and achievements of Hevelius, a renowned observer of the night sky, have inspired the Hewelianum Centre to make the AstroCamera competition a regular event, with this year marking the sixth time it has been held. The competition is organised into the following categories: Category I: Deep-sky objects (photographs of star ...

30. januar 2018: ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) now has a second instrument working with the powerful Adaptive Optics Facility (AOF). The infrared instrument HAWK-I (High Acuity Wide-field K-band Imager) [1] is now also benefiting from sharper images and shorter exposure times. This follows the successful integration of the AOF with MUSE (the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer). The Adaptive Optics Facility (AOF) is a long-term project that is nearing completion on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT). It provides adaptive optics correction for all the instruments attached to one of the VLT Unit Telescopes (UT4, also known as Yepun). Adaptive optics works to compensate for the blurring effect of the Earth’s atmosphere. This upgrade now enables HAWK-I to obtain sharper images, needing shorter exposure times than before to obtain similar results. By using the AOF, astronomers can now get good image quality with HAWK-I, even when the weather conditions are not perfect. Following a ...

29. januar 2018: ESO is inviting submissions for the fifth Photo Nightscape Awards (PNA) — an international competition for astrophotographers. As a partner in the competition, which is organised by the Chasseurs de Nuits association, ESO will provide an array of astronomical goodies for the winners. The competition categories for adult entrants are: Nightscape; Timelapse; and In Town. All three are open to photographers from all countries. The PNA Junior category, for entrants under 18 years old, is reserved for French nationals only. Anyone wishing to take part in the competition should submit a registration form, their photo or timelapse sequence and, if they are under 18 years of age, a parental consent form, to the following email address by 31 March 2018: pna@photonightscapeawards.com. Pictures must have been taken between 1 April 2017 and 31 March 2018. For more detailed information, please refer to the competition rules on the dedicated web page. The ...

19. januar 2018: On 26 April 2018, ESO will participate in Germany’s Girls’ Day activities, in which technology companies, universities and research organisations open their doors to female school students to give them an insight into scientific and technological professions and to encourage more of them to choose careers in STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). Places for the event are limited. To register, please visit the Girls’ Day website. The ESO Girls’ Day will introduce the work of ESO and highlight many of our daily activities, such as astrophysical research, mechanical and opto-mechanical design and integration, operations, and much more. The programme includes introductory talks as well as hands-on workshops on astronomy and engineering. The students will learn how astronomical instruments are built, tested and operated. They will also learn how data are collected and used in astronomical research to answer the big questions about the Universe. This will provide the ...

19. januar 2018: The development of a new spectrometer for the Morita Array, which forms part of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), has been approved by the ALMA Board. Developed by Japan, the Morita Array is composed of twelve 7-metre antennas and four 12-metre antennas. The new spectrometer will be dedicated to the four 12-metre antennas under the ALMA Future Development Program, which aims to maintain ALMA’s capacity to produce remarkable scientific results. ALMA creates very sharp images by linking multiple antennas together to form a giant virtual telescope that can be up to 16 kilometres in diameter. The Morita Array forms one part of ALMA, and comprises antennas with small separations [1]. Radio waves collected by the ACA antennas are processed by the ACA Correlator, which combines the data from all of the antennas [2]. At present the ACA Correlator is optimised to process signals from the twelve 7-metre antennas, the ...

19. januar 2018: The winners of the 2017 Catch a Star Contest have been announced. ESO is providing each of the top five places with a mounted image of a particularly fascinating astronomical object. The top three places will also have the rare opportunity to carry out remote observations at the Rozhen National Astronomical Observatory in Bulgaria. The top three prizes were awarded to: First prize:Astronomy and Mathematics: Estimation of the Sun rotation movements and the Earth translation, by Mario Martín and Susana Sánchez, from Spain. Second prize:61 Cygni, by Elina Hell Messner & Maximilian Komar, from Italy. Third prize:Steam Moon: An interdisciplinary vision of the Moon, by Miquel Macías & Martí Rubio, from Spain. A complete list of the winners can be found on the Catch a Star website. School students from around the world were invited to take part in the European astronomy contest Catch a Star. To participate students had ...

15. januar 2018: The Royal Observatory Greenwich, in association with Insight Investment and BBC Sky at Night Magazine, has announced the key dates for the Insight Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2018 competition — its annual global search for the most beautiful and spectacular visions of the cosmos, whether they are striking pictures of vast galaxies millions of light-years away, or dramatic images of the night sky much closer to home. ESO supports the 2018 competition by providing a judge from its education and Public Outreach Department (ePOD). Now in its tenth year, the hugely popular competition opens to entrants on Monday 15 January, giving them the chance of taking home the grand prize of £10 000. Entrants will have until Friday 9 March to enter up to ten images in the various categories of the competition via www.rmg.co.uk/astrophoto. Insight Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2018 has nine main categories: Skyscapes: Landscape and ...

22. december 2017: The latest edition of ESO's quarterly journal, The Messenger, is now available online. Find out the latest news from ESO, on topics ranging from new instruments to the latest science discoveries. Highlights of this edition include: Astronomy in Australia First light and science verification for the GRAVITY instrument Observing gas stripping in galaxies with MUSE, and MUSE WFM AO science verification Unveiling the nature of giant ellipticals and their stellar halos with the VST Dissecting the core of the Tarantula Nebula with MUSE Download The Messenger in PDF format or visit The Messenger website to subscribe and receive a free printed copy. This product is also available in the ESOshop.

21. december 2017: On 19 December 2017 in Brussels, ESO’s Director General, Xavier Barcons, met the European Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation, Carlos Moedas, and the EC Director-General of Research and Innovation, Robert-Jan Smits. The Commissioner and ESO Director General discussed ways to reinforce the relationship between the European Commission and ESO in order to further the development of fundamental science across the European Research Area. ESO’s role as the main driver for ground-based astronomy in Europe gives it a unique responsibility to ensure that collaboration in astronomy infrastructure, instrumentation and science is well-fostered. The meeting addressed the development of the European Strategy Forum for Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) which currently lists ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope as a landmark European infrastructure. ESO’s Director General also offered ESO’s expertise towards supporting the governance of the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) initiative and in particular with helping to improve the stewardship of archive data in ...

18. december 2017: ESO has signed a new agreement with TOPTICA, the German photonics company, for the production of lasers to be used in ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) adaptive optics system. TOPTICA [1], in partnership with the Canadian company MPB Communications Inc. (MPBC) [2], will build at least four laser sources for the ELT [3], helping the telescope to achieve unprecedented spatial resolution for an optical/infrared ground-based telescope. The ELT is scheduled to see first light in 2024. The laser system for the adaptive optics system on the ELT will be based on the Four Laser Guide Star Facility (4LGSF) on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT). The Adaptive Optics Facility, which uses the 4LGSF, has already shown spectacular improvement in image sharpness on the VLT (eso1724). The TOPTICA/MPBC Guide Star Alliance was the main contractor for the laser system on the VLT (eso1613). Adaptive optics compensate for the blurring effect of the ...

11. december 2017: The latest issue of the free magazine Science in School is now available online and in printed form. This European journal for science teachers offers up-to-date information on cutting-edge science, teaching materials and projects in science education, interviews with inspiring scientists and teachers, reviews of books and other resources, and many other useful resources for science teachers. It aims to promote science teaching by encouraging communication between teachers, scientists and everyone else involved in European science education. Some of the highlights of this issue include: an insight into the blood-brain barrier; an article about how we can track pathogen changes at the genetic level; and ten things you might not know about antimatter. Practical classroom activities include a series of Earth science activities exploring the constituents of soil, as well as molecular detective activities on mushrooms and other plants and fungi. Science in School is published by EIROforum, a collaboration ...

7. december 2017: ESO's styrende organ, Council, har netop godkendt, at der må bruges midler til at dække udgifterne både til de fem indre ringe af delspejle til hovedspejlet (M1) og til 133 reservedelspejle (som udgør 1/6 af hele M1) til det nye Extremely Large Telescope (ELT). Desuden anskaffes endnu en vedligeholdelsesenhed til delspejlene. Beslutningen blev taget ved det nylige møde i Council i Garching, Tyskland, som følge af en positiv anbefaling fra ESO's Finance Committee, og det er blevet muligt, fordi finansieringsmulighederne er blevet forbedrede. ELT er et enestående, nyt jordbaseret teleskop med et hovedspejl med en diameter på 39 meter. Hovedspejlet består af 798 sekskantede delspejle med en diameter hver på 1,4 meter. Det bliver verdens største optiske teleskop; "Det største øje mod himlen". Målet er, at ELT skal have "first light" i 2024. Indtil nu har de fem indre ringe af delspejle til primærspejlet hørt til projektets Fase 2, som ...

7. december 2017: ESO’s governing body, the Council, has elected Professor Willy Benz of the Swiss National Centre for Competence in Research (NCCR) PlanetS and the University of Bern, Switzerland, as the next ESO Council President. Willy Benz is looking forward to his new role: “I feel very honoured that the Council has entrusted me with this significant responsibility. I’m delighted to be offered the possibility to take a more active role in ensuring ESO’s capability to provide the community with world-class astronomical facilities across wavelengths, techniques, and even telescope sizes. I am looking forward to working with everyone during the coming year.” Benz is the current director of NCCR PlanetS and Professor for Physics and Astrophysics at the University of Bern, Switzerland. His research is primarily focussed on planets, both inside and outside the Solar System, which he has studied since the mid-1980s in a career that has taken him across the ...

30. november 2017: The De Zeeuw–Van Dishoeck Graduation Prize for Astronomy, established to encourage young talent in astronomy in the Netherlands, has been awarded to Laura Driessen of the University of Amsterdam. The award was presented at a ceremony in Haarlem on 27 November 2017. The award, which consists of a certificate and a cash prize of 3000 euros, is awarded annually to the best master’s thesis in the field of astronomy written by a student studying at a Dutch university. Laura Driessen received the prize for her master’s thesis study on supernova remnants and pulsar wind nebulae. Laura is now studying for a PhD in Manchester, United Kingdom. Laura was very surprised to hear that she had won the De Zeeuw-Van Dishoeck prize. “I really enjoyed working on this project, and received a lot of support from my supervisors Jason Hessels and Jacco Vink,” she said. “This project showed how mysterious the ...

27. november 2017: Universet er ikke tomt - det er fyldt med støv! I nogle områder er der endda meget meget støvet. For eksempel omgives nye babystjerner af en skive af støv, som sender stof ind i den unge stjerne, så den vokser. Vi har brug for at studere dette vigtige tidspunkt i en stjernes barndom for bedre at kunne forstå stjerneudvikling. Men de fleste teleskoper har svært ved at se ind igennem støvet. Her kommer ALMA ind i billedet. ESOcast 139 viser hvordan de enestående egenskaber ved ALMA gør det muligt for astronomerne at lære om de objekter i rummet, som eller ville være skjulte for os. Alle kan abonnere på ESOcasts på iTunes, få fremtidige afsnit på YouTube eller følge os på Vimeo. Der er masser af andre spændende ESOcasts, og de er helt gratis. Vi har brug for frivillige til at skrive undertekster til ESOcasts på flere sprog, eller blot ...

13. november 2017: More than 180 video applications from 19 countries were submitted for the 2017 ESO Astronomy Camp, and the winners of the bursaries offered by ESO and the national partners have now been selected. These talented scientists and engineers of the future put forward applications of extremely high quality, all eager to be selected for a place at this year’s camp. ESO is delighted to announce that Elise Denis from France is the winner of the ESO bursary. The ESO bursary covers the full cost of the camp and the associated travel for the student. The following students will also receive financial support from the national partners: From the German Astronomical Society, Germany, support for Luise Raum From the National Institute of Astrophysics, Italy, support for Lisa Niederbrunner From the Netherlands Research School for Astronomy, the Netherlands, support for Isabelle Joosten From the Polish Astronomical Society, Poland, support for Daniel Wirzba ...

10. november 2017: The latest release of ESO’s Virtual Tours includes the option to view them in virtual reality mode as well as 360-degree panoramic mode. You can now use a cell phone with either a standard cardboard virtual reality headset or oculus rift glasses (instructions here), to experience tours of ESO’s facilities in an exciting new way. This latest release also includes new and updated virtual tours of ESO’s observatories and facilities, bringing with them better functionality on computers and new panoramic views taken during the recent fulldome expedition. Marvel at ALMA’s majestic dishes as they study the iridescent night sky, then pan round to see the starkly beautiful Chajnantor plateau in Chile’s Atacama desert — by day, by night, at sunset and at sunrise. Visit two of the most technically advanced and productive astronomical sites in the world — Paranal observatory and La Silla, ESO’s first observatory. You will be able ...

8. november 2017: FORSCHA, the annual science fair of Munich, is an event that aims at getting the public involved with science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM). With a varied programme for children, young people, parents and educators, the event encourages everyone to learn more about our world and the Universe we live in. This year the fair will take place at the MOC in Munich from 17–19 November 2017. Following last year’s successful participation, ESO will have a stand at the FORSCHA event with hands-on experiments based on activities being developed for the new ESO Supernova Planetarium & Visitor Centre. This year, ESO is delighted to be working with students from the Werner-Heisenberg-Gymnasium in Garching, and with support from the Project Management Institute Southern Germany Chapter. The school students will help FORSCHA participants experience the capacity of both current and new ESO telescopes to probe the mysteries of the Universe otherwise beyond ...