[ASA] An update from your ESO UC representative: 46th (2022) Users Committee meeting

[Sarah Sweet]

Dear Australian astronomers,

Please distribute this update to others as appropriate.

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.

ESO UC46

As you may recall, the UC conducted its annual poll earlier this year. The report can be found at https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/LtDvCjZ1N7ijwDBXvfWWa_L?domain=eso.org, including a summary of the ESO community followed by a ‘fact sheet’ from each country. Thank you to those who completed the poll! ESO takes the responses seriously, so please do continue to provide feedback in future iterations. The report indicates high rates of satisfaction overall, with mixed views about the quality of OPC feedback, requests for more thorough documentation and flexibility for data reduction software, and highlighting a need for improvement in the designated Visitor Mode tool.

The special topic this year was "LPO visitor mode and remote participation in observations". The ESO community was 84% (16/19 in Australia) likely or very likely to use Service Mode, and 52% (7/19 in Australia) to use designated Visitor Mode in future, due to the efficiency, convenience and envionmentally-friendliness of these modes. 52% of ESO users overall (but only 4/19 of Australian users) said they were likely to use classical Visitor Mode, and there was strong support for not replacing it with dVM.

The ESO Users Committee met on 28-29 April in hybrid mode. The agenda, presentations and other documents are at https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/bHm6Ck81N9tnRAKjpSVfO4A?domain=eso.org, 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 on pages 17-19. ESO has since verbally responded to the recommendations by teleconference in November. That response is not public, but ESO considered all recommendations and I am pleased to report that all are being acted upon.

P111 outcomes

The time allocation process for P111 has been delayed from the usual Christmas-time announcement, with outcomes expected to be announced around 1 Feb 2023. The observing period will still commence on 1 April, so those receiving belated Christmas presents of successful observing proposals should plan for a fast turnaround when preparing Phase 2.

Interim UC rep

I’m pleased to say that Devika Kamath will be acting as Australian ESO UC representative while I am on parental leave (9/1/2023 - 9/7/2023). Please get in touch with Devika (address in cc) if you have any concerns or feedback for ESO during that time.

Best wishes for a happy Christmas and New Year ahead,

Sarah

---

Dr Sarah Sweet (she/her)
Lecturer in Astrophysics
ARC DECRA Fellow
School of Mathematics and Physics
University of Queensland
Mobile: +61 402 089 803
sarahsweet.com.au<https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/PAx_Clx1Njio3mV8vuytjNt?domain=sarahsweet.com.au>
s.sweet at uq.edu.au<mailto:s.sweet at uq.edu.au>
sarah at sarahsweet.com.au<mailto:sarah at sarahsweet.com.au>

---






Regards,

Sarah

---

Dr Sarah Sweet
Lecturer in Astrophysics
ARC DECRA Fellow
School of Mathematics and Physics
University of Queensland
Mobile: +61 402 089 803
sarahsweet.com.au<https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/PAx_Clx1Njio3mV8vuytjNt?domain=sarahsweet.com.au>
s.sweet at uq.edu.au
sarah at sarahsweet.com.au

---




-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.sydney.edu.au/pipermail/asa/attachments/20221214/390137c3/attachment.htm>