ESO Annual Report 2004

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ESO Annual Report 2004 presented to the Council by the Director General Dr. Catherine Cesarsky
ESO is the foremost intergovernmental European Science and Technology organisation in the field of ground-based astrophysics. It is supported by eleven countries: Belgium, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Created in 1962, ESO provides state-ofthe-art research facilities to European astronomers and astrophysicists. In pursuit of this task, ESO’s activities cover a wide spectrum including the design and construction of world-class ground-based observational facilities for the memberstate scientists, large telescope projects, design of innovative scientific instruments, developing new and advanced technologies, furthering European co-operation and carrying out European educational programmes. ESO operates at three sites in the Atacama desert region of Chile. The first site is at La Silla, a mountain 600 km north of Santiago de Chile, at 2 400 m altitude. It is equipped with several optical telescopes with mirror diameters of up to 3.6-metres. The 3.5-m New Technology Telescope (NTT) was the first in the world to have a computer-controlled main mirror. Whilst La Silla remains one of the scientifically most productive observing sites in the world, the Paranal site with the Very Large Telescope Array (VLT) is the flagship facility of European astronomy. Paranal is situated about 130 km south of the town of Antofagasta in Chile, 12 km inland from the Pacific Coast in what is probably the driest area in the world. Scientific operations began in 1999 and have resulted in many highly successful research programmes. 2 ESO Annual Report 2004 The VLT is a most unusual telescope, based on the latest technology. It is not just one, but an array of 4 telescopes, each with a main mirror of 8.2-m diameter. With one such telescope, images of celestial objects as faint as magnitude 30 have been obtained in a one-hour exposure. This corresponds to seeing objects that are 4 billion times fainter than what can be seen with the naked eye. View of La Silla from the 3.6-m telescope. The VLT with stations of the VLTI (foreground).
Page 1: ESO Annual Report 2004
Page 5 and 6: Contents Foreword 6 Introduction 7
Page 7 and 8: Introduction Another year has passe
Page 9 and 10: expanded at the desert site between
Page 11 and 12: Research Highlights This year has a
Page 13 and 14: Two extremely hot transiting exopla
Page 15 and 16: Formation of rocky planets in circu
Page 17 and 18: Quadrant 1: 1.600 µm Quadrant 2: 1
Page 19 and 20: Calibrating the cosmic distance lad
Page 21 and 22: Intergalactic stars 4 N 6 2 0 0 100
Page 23 and 24: Closer to the monster Active galaxi
Page 25: Composite colour-coded image - base
Page 28 and 29: Final preparation of AT1. In 2004,
Page 30: VLT Operations The VLT Observatory
Page 34 and 35: REM, the 60-cm robotic telescope th
Page 37 and 38: Chajnantor During the year the ALMA
Page 40 and 41: Extremely Large Telescope The OWL c
Page 44 and 45: The Organisation Office of the Dire
Page 46 and 47: Technical Developments The Technolo
Page 48 and 49: in its stand-alone guest instrument
Page 50 and 51: The Astrophysical Virtual Observato
Page 52 and 53:
ST-ECF ESO and the European Space A
Page 54 and 55:
Public Outreach ESO’s public outr
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ESO Press Releases ESO Press Photo
Page 58 and 59:
Relations with Chile One of the pri
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European Affairs As in previous yea
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The Observing Programmes Committee
Page 64 and 65:
The Scientific Technical Committee
Page 66 and 67:
Summary of Use of Telescopes by Dis
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Finance Committee Finance Finance C
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Personnel The activities of the Per
Page 73 and 74:
May The MIDI instrument on the VLTI
Page 75 and 76:
Signing of the X-Shooter agreement
Page 77 and 78:
Bennert, N.; Schulz, H.; Henkel, C.
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De Bruyne, V.; De Rijcke, S.; Dejon
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Harjunpää, P.; Lehtinen, K.; Haik
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Lazzaro, D.; Angeli, C. A.; Carvano
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Papovich, C.; Dickinson, M.; Fergus
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Spoon, H. W. W.; Moorwood, A. F. M.
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Peer-reviewed publications by ESO S
Page 91 and 92:
Brown, T. M.; Ferguson, H. C.; Smit
Page 93:
European Organisation for Astronomi
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ESO Annual Report 2004

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