News from La Silla: Science Operations Department

tained as we continue to build on Paranal (e.g. VST and VISTA) and often have more people working on site than are expected in a steady state of operation. The recent MIDI commissioning required for the reactivation of some containers for ESO and consortium staff. Not all were happy with the move back to the not-so-good-old days. The new Visitor’s Centre was concluded and is in use for the weekend visitor programme, and as a starting point for VIP visitors. The scale of the Paranal operation is often difficult to appreciate. Ourselves on the mountain find it all fairly normal. To put it into context the ESO Paranal casino serves approximately 100,000 meals every year and we have 40,000 overnight stays per year. Paranal is not connected to the Chilean electricity grid and has to generate its own power (up to three megawatts). Water is of course a necessary resource and we can store up to 1 million litres in our tanks. Keeping the observatory supplied requires a water tanker truck to arrive on site every 8 hours, every day of the year. In 2002, Joerg Eschwey, who more than any other individual has personified the challenge and success of creating a whole observatory and its infrastructure in the middle of the Atacama desert, has moved on from the VLT to the ALMA project. With this move a small shake up of the observatory organization was necessary and it has been a pleasure to welcome Frank Ruseler from the Santiago office of ESO to Paranal where he has taken over the logistics department. The year ahead of us promises to be as exciting as this past one. VISIR, VST, OmegaCAM, MACAOs for the UTs, FINITO, AMBER, Auxiliary telescopes and the laser guide star all intend to arrive on Paranal. Times will continue to be interesting on Paranal for the foreseeable future. Exciting new facilities and capabilities continue to be added to this astronomy wonderland.