ESO Period 101 Proposal Submission Statistics

Published: 13 Oct 2017
The Milky Way from the VLT

The deadline for proposal submission for Period 101 (1 April 2018 - 1 October 2018) was 28 September 2017. 899 valid proposals were submitted, including 16 Large Programmes, of which two are GTO Large Programmes. The number of proposals for P101 is very similar to that of periods 91 (893), 92 (892), 93 (898), 94 (901), 98 (901), 99 (887) and 100 (895). This confirms the leveling off observed after the peak of periods 95 (934), 96 (960) and 97 (1024).

On the VLT the most requested ESO instrument was X-shooter with 201 nights, followed by MUSE with 186 nights, and FORS2 with 177 nights. HARPS on the ESO 3.6-metre was the most demanded instrument at La Silla, with a request of 260 nights. The telescope with the highest oversubscription is UT2-Kueyen, with a total request of 406 nights, followed by UT4-Yepun (307 nights), UT1-Antu (293 nights) and UT3-Melipal (109 nights). On account of the heavy load on UT4, no Large Programmes were offered on this telescope in P101.

The percentages of submitted proposals across science categories were:

  • Cosmology and Intergalactic Medium 17.2%
  • Galaxies 23.6%
  • ISM, Star Formation & Planetary Systems 28.8%
  • Stellar Evolution 30.4%.

Following the steady trend observed for many years, the request for Service Mode kept exceeding 80%.

The proposals will be reviewed by the Observing Programmes Committee, which meets in November. Proposers will be informed of the outcome of the review process at the end of December.