[ASA] An update from your ESO UC representative and call for OPC nominations

[Caroline Foster]

Dear fellow Australian astronomers,

Please feel free to share the following with other interested parties.

This is a quick update from your Users Committee (UC) representative. My role is to represent Australian ESO users and act as the capillary link between ESO and the Australian community.

First, congratulations to all those who have been awarded ESO time for P103 and have completed their Phase IIs last week. Now let’s hope for lots of good quality photons!

The ESO Users Committee had its mid-term telecon last December with ESO to receive an update on the progress to date of the UC42 recommendations.  Some details and documents from the UC42 are publicly accessible at the following URL:

https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/QGm5CROAQotDo9pwt9Bp0n?domain=eso.org

I shared the recommendations from UC42 on this forum last October. The document can now be found here:
https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/2AM5CVAGXPtnmrEVuzhARd?domain=astronomyaustralia.org.au

ESO has been making progress on most fronts and the UC is following up on various recommendations that still need addressing. We will have a full update at the end of April during the next UC meeting.

In preparation for UC43, I will send around the annual ESO Users Poll in the coming weeks. Please keep an eye on it and be sure to fill it out promptly. It is the best source of feedback from the community that ESO and myself get. That said, I welcome email feedback from our community at any time.

If you experience technical issues using ESO data/facilities, the best place to get help is through the ESO User Support Department (https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/_twMCWLJY7iLZ7Q1IKyw6Y?domain=eso.org).

Many thanks to those who agreed to be nominated for the Observing Programme Committee (ESO TAC). ESO has now issued a new call for nominations (for P105), in particular, they pointed out that they have an almost total absence of candidates (particularly female) under the D (stellar evolution) and C (interstellar medium, star formation, and planetary systems) scientific categories. If you know someone who would be able to serve on the OPC (ESO requests for 2nd postdoc of beyond), please contact me directly. ESO has updated their nomination system and I now need to include the OPC subcategories (https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/jBVUCXLKZoiPjvglukP6VP?domain=eso.org) in the nomination. In addition, I may also include the nominee’s experience on ESO telescopes and the year of their PhD. As usual, if you have been nominated in the past, but haven’t been contacted by ESO yet, your name will stay in the system for a total of 4 periods (2 years).

A reminder: large program call for proposals is moving to a yearly basis starting with P104. The call should come out early next month with a deadline around the end of March. I note that the frequency of the call for proposals for normal programs or director’s discretionary time proposals remain unchanged.

Finally, if you haven’t already done so, don’t forget to sign up for the ESO science newsletter: https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/cR3NCYWL1viWmRvKUMZmzC?domain=eso.org.

Clear skies!


Caroline Foster

PS: This message also appears in the AAL ESO blog, where you can also find a recent post by my ESO STC colleague Mike Ireland about Australia’s opportunity to shape the future of the VLT - https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/kk00CZYM2VFqAZw1HPAH3U?domain=astronomyaustralia.org.au<https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/kk00CZYM2VFqAZw1HPAH3U?domain=astronomyaustralia.org.au>.
--
Dr Caroline Foster
ASTRO3D Fellow & ESO Users Committee Representative
The University of Sydney
Faculty of Science, Sydney Institute for Astrophysics

360B, A28 | The University of Sydney | NSW |
+61 286 276 411  | +61 430 453 532
caroline.foster at sydney.edu.au<mailto:caroline.foster at sydney.edu.au>  | www.carofoster.com<https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/62RoC1WZXriAxy0rUyDRtM?domain=carofoster.com>

Office days: Monday (@USyd), Tuesday, Thursday, Friday (@USyd)

INSPIRED – the Campaign to support the University of Sydney
sydney.edu.au/inspired<http://sydney.edu.au/inspired>

CRICOS 00026A
This email plus any attachments to it are confidential. Any unauthorised use is strictly prohibited.
If you receive this email in error, please delete it and any attachments.

Please think of our environment and only print this email if necessary.




-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.sydney.edu.au/pipermail/asa/attachments/20190213/52826d80/attachment.html>