The proposal submission for ESO Period 96 (1 October 2015 тАУ 31 March 2016) closed on 26 March 2015. 958 proposals were received, including 27 Large Programme and 46 Target of Opportunity proposals, for a total of 2450 nights. This is some 30 proposals more than last period, but for a similar number of nights.
ESO Period 96 Proposal Statistics
Published: 25 Apr 2015
The requested nights are broken down as 1934, 428 and 88 at Paranal, La Silla and APEX respectively, with 129 nights for the survey telescopes VISTA and VST. Although FORS2 remains the most reqested instrument (142 proposals), both new instruments MUSE and SPHERE were very heavily requested (124 and 111 proposals respectively). The percentages of submitted proposals across science categories were: Cosmology 21%; Galaxies & Galactic Nuclei 17%; ISM, Star Formation & Planetary Systems 33%; Stellar Evolution 29%.
The proposals are currently being reviewed by the Observing Programmes Committee, which meets in late May. Proposers will be informed of the outcome of the review process in early July.