General Information

Paranal Science Operations (PSO) is the department of the La Silla Paranal Observatory that is in charge of the operation of the telescopes on Paranal. These telescopes are:

• The four Unit Telescopes (UTs) forming the VLT.
• The VLTI, which is the interferometric combination of either the UTs or the Auxiliary Telescopes (ATs).
• The VST and VISTA survey telescopes.

Watch live webcam pictures from the summit of Paranal.

If you are interested in working at Paranal, you are invited to inform yourself about the career prospects and working conditions in the PSO department.

PSO News

• September 2013: As mentioned in the CfP for P93 (section 5.1.2), ESO reserves the right to allocate time in Designated Visitor Mode (dVM) on the VLT(I) telescopes instead of in regular Visitor Mode. This applies to any runs with a justified need for Visitor Mode observations and whose duration is strictly smaller than one night.
  PIs of such dVM runs are informed at time of the web letters that instructions for the relevant procedures are described under the section  тАЬInformation for ObserversтАЭ at the URL:  http://www.eso.org/sci/facilities/paranal/sciops.html (this page).
  
• January 2013: In our commitment to continuously improve the services provided to the community of ESO users, our operations model has recently undergone a reorganization of the day- and night- time tasks. The implementation of the related changes has started in January of 2013 and full deployment is expected to last until mid-2013. These changes aim at enhancing: 
  • the quality of the daytime support, in particular towards visiting astronomers (the nighttime support astronomer will most of the time also be available to help with the preparation of the science programs), and
  • the quality of the instrument support (documentation, science product and related calibration/reduction).
• October 2012:
  • Deployment of new generation operations tools at all LPO telescopes, including vOT/P2PP3.
  • Discontinuation of DVD data backup for visitors and FTP transfer of ToO data. All data (science & calibrations) should now be accessed via the ESO archive.

Information for Observers

In the SciOps pages, you should find all the information you need for your observations from the time you have an idea of observations until when you finish processing your data. The menu on the left contains the list of the PSO pages for the astronomers, which are described in more details hereafter. Also, some useful ESO pages (not belonging to PSO) can be accessible from the left sub-menus and are explained in this page.

• Preparing your proposals for observing time and your observations

  • Call for Proposals: CfP
  • Target of Opportunity Proposals
  • Director discretionary time
  • ETC: Exposure Time Calculators.
  • Tools to compute ephemerides, visiblity, airmass, etc.

• Visiting astronomer coming to Paranal

  • Before your observation run: you should familiarize yourself with the technical documentation (see below), and with P2PP. This Visitor Information page contains the info you will need. From that page, you will also find information on the Computers at your disposal, as well as on the Data Reduction Software installed.
    
    

    Remember to prepare a backup program in case of poor seeing, thin clouds or strong winds (usually implying targets with Dec < -25deg), the list of additional objects you want to observe in addition to your approved targets and to request their approval well in advance using this procedure

  • Arriving on Paranal, you should also check out the practical information you should find in your room (or here as a PDF file)

• Designated Visitor Mode Observations (dVM)

  • Although the preparation and execution of your dVM run are considered to be (nearly) similar to that of a VM run (i.e. your OBs will not go through a phase2 check), the preparation of the observing material should follow the phase2 guidelines.
    
    At least 4 days before your run please send a tar file with the following observing information to antu@eso.org:
    
    - All OBs (science & special calibration) prepared (and verified) with the latest version of p2pp, exported to .obx format
    - README file with detailed instructions on the observing sequences, strategy of the observations, calibration needs, etc
    - Finding charts for all targets
    - Any special instructions for time critical observations, special calibrations, etc.
    - Your Skype name and your contact phone number, in case realtime support is required from you during the execution of the observations
    
    Independent on when you submitted your OBs, you are requested to contact Paranal (antu@eso.org) again 2-3 days before the start of your run to establish communication with the Operations Staff that will actually be executing your observations (e.g. to test skype connection / clarify final details / notify whether or not you will be available on skype).
    
    In case of questions, please send an email to 'paranal@eso.org'.
    

     

  • Similarly to regular VM runs, designated VM runs are executed on a fixed time-slots and can be affected by changing meteo conditions or instrument failures.
  • As for VM runs, please submit in advance any request for  instrument setup changes or additional and backup targets. 
    
  • Please do not forget to complete your end-of-mission report.

• Service Observation

  • All you need for Phase 2 and afterwards is on the USD Phase 2 page

• After the observations...

  • End of Mission Report:
    

    Please complete an end-of-mission report when your observing run is completed.

  • Pipe-lines and Quality Control pages (DFO Garching)
  • Science Archive (Garching)

• Special cases - Targets of Opportunity and Director Discretionary time:

  • DDT Instructions: how to apply for Director Discretionary time
  • RRM trigger Instructions for triggering Rapid Response Mode Observations.
  • RRM Status: log of the instrument status and of the RRM triggers.
  • ToO Policies: the rules governing the execution of ToO at the La Silla Paranal Observatory.
  • ToO Trigger form, to request the execution of an approved ToO observation.

• Other policies

  • General VLT/VLTI Science Operations Policy as defined by the ESO Council (pdf)
  • LGSF Policies: the rules governing the possible conflict arising because of the Laser Guide Star Facility.

Technical Information

• Paranal:

  • Information about the site position, general weather information, seismicity...
  • Weather, past, present and forecasted
  • Forecasts for advanced users.
  • Ambient condition database: access the database for any past night.

• Telescopes

  • VLT Unit Telescopes
  • VLTI Auxiliary Telescopes
  • VST, the VLT Survey Telescope
    
  • VISTA, the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy
    
  • DIMM, the seeing monitor.
  • MASCOT, the all-sky camera.

• Instruments

  • Instrumentation overview
  • News from the Paranal Instrumentation Team

• Policies

  • General VLT/VLTI Science Operations Policy as defined by the ESO Council (pdf)
  • LGSF Policies: the rules governing the possible conflict arising because of the Laser Guide Star Facility.
  • Target of Opportunity Observations Policies, governing the execution of ToO at the La Silla Paranal Observatory