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Highlights include:

Leibundgut, B., Anderson, R. et al.: ESPRESSO Science Verification
Lundgren, A., De Breuck, C. et al.: An Era Comes to an End: The Legacy of LABOCA at APEX
Evans, C., Lennon, D. et al.: The VLT-FLAMES Tarantula Survey
Bayliss, D., Wheatley, P. et al.: NGTS — Uncovering New Worlds with Ultra-Precise Photometry

ADS BibCode: 2020Msngr.181....3L

Leibundgut, B., Anderson, R., Berg, T., Cristiani, S., Figueira, P., Lo Curto, G., Mehner, A., Sedaghati, E., Pritchard, J., Wittkowski, M.

ESPRESSO Science Verification took place at the end of August and the beginning of September 2019. It was spread over two visitor-mode nights, requiring seven hours of observations taken in service mode. The weather conditions (strong winds and poor seeing conditions) and some telescope problems (failure of guide cameras) hampered the first two nights and additional time was granted to finish the top-ranked programmes. In response to the call for ESPRESSO science verification, 16 proposals were submitted, 10 of which were scheduled for a total of 25 hours of observations. A slight oversubscription of the available time was planned to allow for the prevailing atmospheric conditions. The seven top-ranked programmes were fully completed.

ADS BibCode: 2020Msngr.181....7L

Lundgren, A., De Breuck, C., Siringo, G., Weiß, A., Agurto, C., Azagra, F., Belloche, A., Dumke, M., Durán, C., Eckart, A., González, E., Güsten, R., Hacar, A., Kovács, A., Kreysa, E., Mac-Auliffe, F., Martínez, M., Menten, K., Montenegro, F., Nyman, L., Parra, R., Pérez-Beaupuits, J., Reveret, V., Risacher, C., Schuller, F., Stanke, T., Torstensson, K., Venegas, P., Wiesemeyer, H., Wyrowski, F.

It was 13 years ago, in May 2007, when the Large APEX Bolometer Camera (LABOCA) was commissioned as a facility instrument on the APEX telescope at the 5100-m-high Llano de Chajnantor. This 870-µm bolometer camera, in combination with the high efficiency of APEX and the excellent atmospheric transmission at the site, has offered an unprecedented capability in mapping the submillimetre continuum emission in objects ranging from the Solar System and star-forming regions throughout the Galactic plane, to the most distant galaxies. As the operation of LABOCA is soon coming to an end to make space for a new array of continuum detectors, we present an overview of the challenges, lessons learned and science impact that it has generated. To date, LABOCA has produced the most papers of any APEX instrument and compares favourably with many VLT instruments.

ADS BibCode: 2020Msngr.181...16P

Petry, D., Stanke, T., Biggs, A., Díaz Trigo, M., Guglielmetti, F., Hatziminaoglou, E., van Kampen, E., Maud, L., Miotello, A., Popping, G., Randall, S., Stoehr, F., Zwaan, M.

From its inception, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) was intended to be accessible to all astronomers, including those who are more used to carrying out their research at other wavelengths. Since the beginning of science observations in September 2011, ALMA has therefore applied a comprehensive Quality Assurance (QA) process to the observed data before delivering them to the principal investigators (PIs). This huge investment, unique for a ground-based (non-survey) observatory of this calibre, results in fully calibrated datasets as well as high-quality images that allow the PIs to assess the quality of their data upon delivery and that provide an advanced starting point for the scientific analysis. In this article we provide a summary of the purpose and status of ALMA QA, a brief description of the QA process and the resulting ALMA data products, and a discussion of how the ALMA user profits from them.

ADS BibCode: 2020Msngr.181...22E

Evans, C., Lennon, D., Langer, N., Almeida, L., Bartlett, E., Bastian, N., Bestenlehner, J., Britavskiy, N., Castro, N., Clark, S., Crowther, P., de Koter, A., de Mink, S., Dufton, P., Fossati, L., Garcia, M., Gieles, M., Gräfener, G., Grin, N., Hénault-Brunet, V., Herrero, A., Howarth, I., Izzard, R., Kalari, V., Maíz Apellániz, J., Markova, N., Najarro, F., Patrick, L., Puls, J., Ramírez-Agudelo, O., Renzo, M., Sabín-Sanjulián, C., Sana, H., Schneider, F., Schootemeijer, A., Simón-Díaz, S., Smartt, S., Taylor, W., Tramper, F., van Loon, J., Villaseñor, J., Vink, J., Walborn, N.

The VLT-FLAMES Tarantula Survey (VFTS) was an ESO Large Programme that has provided a rich, legacy dataset for studies of both resolved and integrated populations of massive stars. Initiated in 2008 (ESO Period 82), we used the Fibre Large Array Multi Element Spectrograph (FLAMES) to observe more than 800 massive stars in the dramatic 30 Doradus star-forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud. At the start of the survey the importance of multiplicity among high-mass stars was becoming evident, so a key feature was multi-epoch spectroscopy to detect radial-velocity shifts arising from binary motion. Here we summarise some of the highlights from the survey and look ahead to the future of the field.

ADS BibCode: 2020Msngr.181...28B

Bayliss, D., Wheatley, P., West, R., Pollacco, D., Anderson, D., Armstrong, D., Bryant, E., Cegla, H., Cooke, B., Gänsicke, B., Gill, S., Jackman, J., Loudon, T., McCormac, J., Acton, J., Burleigh, M., Casewell, S., Goad, M., Henderson, B., Hogan, A., Raynard, L., Tilbrook, R., Briegal, J., Gillen, E., Queloz, D., Smith, G., Eigmüller, P., Smith, A., Watson, C., Bouchy, F., Lendl, M., Nielsen, L., Udry, S., Jenkins, J., Vines, J., Jordán, A., Moyano, M., Günther, M.

The Next Generation Transit Survey (NGTS) is a state-of-the-art photometric facility located at ESO’s Paranal Observatory. NGTS is able to reach a precision of 150 ppm in 30 minutes, making it the most precise ground-based photometric system in the world. This precision has led to the discovery of a rare exoplanet in the “Neptune Desert” (NGTS-4b), the shortest-period hot Jupiter ever discovered (NGTS-10b), and the first exoplanet recovered from a TESS monotransit candidate (NGTS-11b). It has also allowed NGTS to characterise exoplanet candidates transiting very bright stars (V < 10) from the TESS mission, and to make coordinated observations in support of VLT programmes.

ADS BibCode: 2020Msngr.181...34B

Beccari, G., Boffin, H.

On 26 April 1920, Harlow Shapley and Heber Curtis engaged in a debate on the scale of the Universe which became known as the Great Debate. That event continues to be seen as an exemplary way of addressing controversies, particularly in astronomy. While, after 100 years, many (if not all) of the scientific questions raised during the Great Debate have been answered, it is a common feature of research that as one question is answered new and often unexpected questions show up. Inspired by these considerations, ESO decided to commemorate the Great Debate with a series of events called the ESO Cosmic Duologues.

ADS BibCode: 2020Msngr.181...37D

The Magellanic Clouds were known before Magellan’s voyage exactly 500 years ago, and were not given that name by Magellan himself or his chronicler Antonio Pigafetta. They were, of course, already known by local populations in South America, such as the Mapuche and Tupi-Guaranis. The Portuguese called them Clouds of the Cape, and scientific circles had long used the names of Nubecula Minor and Major. We trace how and when the name Magellanic Clouds came into common usage by following the history of exploration of the southern hemisphere and the southern sky by European explorers — which ultimately led to the founding of ESO.

ADS BibCode: 2020Msngr.181...43C

Cioni, M., Romaniello, M., Anderson, R.

The year 2019 marked the quincentenary of the arrival in the southern hemisphere of Ferdinand Magellan, the namesake of the Magellanic Clouds, our nearest example of dwarf galaxies in the early stages of a minor merging event. These galaxies have been firmly established as laboratories for the study of variable stars, stellar evolution, and galaxy interaction, as well as being anchors for the extragalactic distance scale. The goal of this conference was to provide fertile ground for shaping future research related to the Magellanic Clouds by combining state-of-the-art results based on advanced observational programmes with discussions of the highly multiplexed wide-field spectroscopic surveys that will come online in the 2020s.

ADS BibCode: 2020Msngr.181...49E

Gendron-Marsolais, M., Jones, M.

ADS BibCode: 2020Msngr.181...51E

The Messenger Issue 181