The latest edition of ESO's science and technology journal, The Messenger, is now available online.

The release of the MUSE gAlaxy Groups In COSMOS (MAGIC) survey (Programmes 094.A-0247, 095.A-0118, 096.A-0596, 097.A-0254, 098.A-0017, 099.A-0246, 0100.A-0607, 0101.A-0282, 0102.A-0327, 0103.A-0563, PI T. Contini) is composed of 18 datacubes, observed with exposure times from 1 to 10 hours, with a median of 4.3 hours, using the wide-field mode, with a spectral sampling of 1.25 Angstroms and a spatial sampling of 0.2 arcsecond. The datacubes cover the wavelength range between 4700 and 9350 Angstroms and have an image quality better than 0.7" FWHM owing to good observing conditions and/or to the use of adaptive optics. The median 3-sigma point-source flux limit of an unresolved emission line reaches 3.6x10^-19 erg s^-1 cm^-2 and the median point source magnitude limit is about 28.5 at 5-sigma in white-light images. The MAGIC survey datacubes target 15 known massive groups and clusters at intermediate redshift (0.3 < z < 0.8), 14 of which being located in the COSMOS field and one in the VVDS field. This dataset is incredibly rich and contains more than one thousand of objects, from stars to high redshift galaxies, as well as extended nebulae.

The  Enhanced Resolution Imager and Spectrograph (ERIS) is a general-use infrared integral field spectrograph and imager that utilises the adaptive optics on the VLT’s UT4. After one year of operation, the proprietary period for the first observations has expired. Both raw and fully processed science data are now publicly available for download via the ESO Archive. The processed data are organised into two data collections, ERIS-NIX and ERIS-SPIFFIER, which contain reduced scientific imaging products and 3D data cubes, respectively. 

The European Interferometry Initiative (Eii) is an open association of institutes and laboratories willing to collaborate in exploiting and developing long-baseline optical interferometry in optical/infrared astronomy, with the VLT interferometer as its leading facility. To continuously promote excellence in the field, the European Interferometry Initiative is happy to invite nominations for the EII Early Career Prize. The newly created prize will be awarded every two years (even years starting from 2024) by the EII Scientific Council to a young scientist (within four years after their PhD) who distinguished themselves for using optical-infrared long-baseline interferometry.

GRAVITY has transformed optical interferometry thanks to its unprecedented sensitivity. GRAVITY+ will yet improve VLTI sensitivity by being able to observe targets as faint as K<22 mag. This will allow significant breakthroughs across astrophysical domains as different as AGNs, young stellar objects and exoplanets. Thanks to the sensitivity boost provided by GRAVITY+ this is the time to open VLTI to explore new fundamental physics by installing a new high-resolution grism for GRAVITY+. This workshop is aimed at the wider spectroscopic, and spectro-interferometric community to gather new ideas about how to maximise the scientific exploration of the new GRAVITY high resolution capabilities, and engage with the spectroscopic community with or without interferometric experience.