The first band- and field-merged science catalogue created from the imaging data obtained by the VST Photometric H¾‘ Survey of the Southern Galactic Plane and Bulge (VPHAS+) has been released and it is available for download via the Catalogue Facility from the ESO Science Archive Facility.

New reduced data (spectra and images) resulting from the Public ESO Spectroscopic Survey of Transient Objects (PESSTO) are now available via the dedicated Phase 3 query interface at the ESO Science Archive Facility.

Following a recommendation by ESO's Scientific and Technical Committee (STC), a call for Letters of Intent for new Public Surveys with VIRCAM mounted on VISTA has been released. A Public Survey is understood as an observing programme in which the investigators commit to produce and make publicly available, within a defined time, a fully reduced and scientifically usable dataset that is likely to answer one or more major scientific questions, be of general use and broad interest to the astronomical community.

Joint ESO, Universidad de Chile, Universidad Andr†és Bello Workshop:
ESO Vitacura, Santiago, Chile, 28 September òÀÓ 02 October 2015

Astrobiology has become the meeting point for astronomers, biologists, geologists, and climatologists in solving the puzzle of how life originated in the Universe. Enormous progress has been made since the discovery of the first extra-solar planet (51 Peg b). The main aims of this workshop are: to bring together the major astrobiology groups; foster exchanges across all the major disciplines involved in the field of astrobiology, and in particular those working on climatology of Solar System planets; and include a strong parallel outreach programme.

New ALMA Science Verification data have been released. The release consists of M100 observations of the CO(1-0) line in Band 3 with the 7-m Array and Total Power (TP) Array, along with an update of previously released 12-m data, demonstrating the ALMA Compact Array (ACA, 7-m and TP Arrays) and data combination capabilities.
SV observations of 3C 286 in Band 6 continuum, demonstrating ALMA's polarization capability, are also released.

The status of the current ALMA observations can be followed in real time from the ALMA science portal.
The array has been cycled through the most compact configurations and will remain in the C34-6/7 extended configuration (baselines to 1.5km) until the end of Cycle 2 (end of September). A status report about the Cycle 1 and 2 observations and news from extension and optimisation of capabilities will be posted soon on the ALMA science portal.

If you wish to conduct a PhD in astronomy-astrophysics within one of the largest centres of astrophysical research in the world, which covers every subject from planets, stars, and galaxies to cosmology, you should seriously consider applying to the IMPRS studentship programme in Munich.

The ESO Science Archive Facility has distributed raw calibration files such as bias frames and flat field frames for many years. As an additional service, we now are also distributing certified, processed and co-added calibration frames that can be directly used for science processing, without having to run the entire data reduction chain.

New reduced data products resulting from the Gaia-ESO Public Spectroscopic Survey are now available via the Phase 3 dedicated query interface at the Science Archive Facility.

The 96th Observing Programmes Committee met on 19òÀÓ21 May 2015. A total of 1168.4 (8-hour equivalent) nights of visitor and service mode observations were allocated on the VLT/VLTI, VISTA, VST, the 3.6-metre, NTT and APEX telescopes. The following announcement provides details of Phase 2 for Service Mode observations.