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Dear all,
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<div class="">I’m sending a friendly reminder about the ESO Users Committee annual poll, due by Friday this week (11:59pm Central European Time; Saturday morning in Australia). Please do complete it if you have not yet done so.</div>
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<div class="">We will present the results of the poll at April’s UC meeting with ESO.</div>
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<div class="">Thanks to those who have already completed it!</div>
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Regards,<br class="">
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Sarah<br class="">
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Dr Sarah Sweet (she/her)<br class="">
Senior Lecturer in Astrophysics<br class="">
ARC DECRA Fellow<br class="">
School of Mathematics and Physics<br class="">
University of Queensland<br class="">
CRICOS 00025B • TEQSA PRV12080<br class="">
Mobile: +61 402 089 803<br class="">
<a href="https://url.au.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/Gx5ACOMKzVT2jZYW5tEfgUG5T1M?domain=sarahsweet.com.au" class="">sarahsweet.com.au</a><br class="">
s.sweet@uq.edu.au<br class="">
sarah@sarahsweet.com.au</div>
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I am sending this message at a time that works for me. Please don’t feel obliged to attend to it outside of when you’re working.<br class="">
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<div class="">On 26 Feb 2025, at 12:58 pm, Sarah Sweet <<a href="mailto:s.sweet@uq.edu.au" class="">s.sweet@uq.edu.au</a>> wrote:</div>
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Dear Australian astronomers, </div>
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<div class="">Please distribute this update to others as appropriate.</div>
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<div class="">I’m writing as your ESO Users Committee (UC) representative. My role is to represent Australian ESO Users and act as a capillary link between ESO and the Australian community.</div>
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<div class=""><b class="">Annual User Poll - closes 14 March</b></div>
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<div class="">UC seeks feedback through an annual poll to assess your experiences with ESO operations: <a href="https://url.au.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/dtwcCP7LAXf5RNgpvs0hDUxnXSW?domain=eso.org" class="">https://www.eso.org/extra/surveys/index.php/413314?lang=en</a>. This year there
is a special focus on quality assurance and data quality.</div>
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I encourage all past, current and future users of ESO to complete the survey, especially but not only those who have submitted Large Programmes or considered submitting them. Your perspectives will be invaluable- please be assured that ESO takes the time to
read all of the comments you take the time to provide.<br class="">
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The poll is open until 14 March 2025, ~one week before the many excellent observing proposals we hope will be submitted from the Australian community!<br class="">
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Survey input is, of course, anonymised and will be gathered to provide recommendations to ESO concerning operations. </div>
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<div class=""><b class="">ESO UC48, including 2024 poll report</b></div>
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<div class="">The report from last year’s poll can be found at <a href="https://url.au.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/H3VMCQnMBZfNplV0BIMi3UGHEY9?domain=eso.org" class="">https://www.eso.org/public/about-eso/committees/uc/uc-48th/UC48_2024_UC_Report.pdf</a>, including
a summary of the ESO community followed by a ‘fact sheet’ from each country. In both the Australian respondents (18) and the broader ESO community, t<span class="" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">he report indicates </span><font class="">high rates of satisfaction
overall, with a </font><font class=""><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" class="">neutral feeling about how helpful LPO distributed peer review feedback was to improve proposals.</span></font></div>
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<div class="">The special topic was “Large Programmes.” As may be expected from recent Australian successes, 7/13 Australian respondents to that topic were involved in LPO large programmes, and 6/13 consider submitting one in future. Some found the data reduction
and analysis workload higher than expected because of the functionality of the tools, especially with preparing high-level products to the archive. One comment in particular pointed out the ubiquitous delays in execution, and requested clearer and more regular communication
about projected time-lines for execution.</div>
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<div class="">The ESO Users Committee met on 25-26 April 2024 in hybrid mode. The agenda, presentations and other documents are at <a href="https://url.au.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/m7BtCROND2ug10Y2nIOsNU1JYSr?domain=eso.org" class="">https://www.eso.org/public/about-eso/committees/uc/uc-48th.html</a>,
though not all files are publicly available. I draw your attention to the final document on that page containing the approved minutes of the meeting, and in particular the UC recommendations under Section 18 on pages 22-24, including some of particular relevance
to our community:</div>
<div class="">* several recommendations concerning the proposed move to yearly call for proposals and subsequent introduction of a fast-track channel, including communicating example (including non-scientific e.g. parental leave) reasons for applying through
fast-track, and considering the frequency and timing of the deadlines,</div>
<div class="">* a recommendation to continue to improve data reduction pipelines and documentation, including tutorial videos,</div>
<div class="">* a recommendation to monitor completion rates of normal and large programmes, and seek to improve them by increased communication about RA pressure and technical help where necessary. </div>
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<div class="">ESO has since verbally responded to each of the recommendations by teleconference in November. That response is not public, but ESO considered all recommendations and I am pleased to report that, as usual, all are being acted upon.</div>
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<div class="">Please feel welcome to contact me directly should you wish to provide further information to the UC about any ESO-relevant topics.</div>
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Best wishes,<br class="">
<br class="">
Sarah<br class="">
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---<br class="">
<br class="">
Dr Sarah Sweet (she/her)<br class="">
Senior Lecturer in Astrophysics<br class="">
ARC DECRA Fellow<br class="">
School of Mathematics and Physics<br class="">
University of Queensland</div>
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CRICOS 00025B • TEQSA PRV12080<br class="">
Mobile: +61 402 089 803<br class="">
<a href="https://url.au.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/Gx5ACOMKzVT2jZYW5tEfgUG5T1M?domain=sarahsweet.com.au/" class="">sarahsweet.com.au</a><br class="">
<a href="mailto:s.sweet@uq.edu.au" class="">s.sweet@uq.edu.au</a><br class="">
<a href="mailto:sarah@sarahsweet.com.au" class="">sarah@sarahsweet.com.au</a><br class="">
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