Scientific Drivers for ESO Future VLT/VLTI Instrumentation

Description:

This is the start of a long process to ultimately operate new advanced capabilities at Paranal that can keep up with the ever-growing need for larger and more complex astrophysical data sets. A modern instrument represents a very significant investment in cash, human resources and time. Such a meeting gives us a precious yardstick to evaluate the competitiveness of first-generation instruments and associated current and forthcoming proposals for first-generation upgrades. This is also crucial to orient the large research and development effort that will provide the very foundation on which second-generation VLT instrumentation can be built. Finally, it represents a significant step towards defining the hopes and goals for the future Extremely Large Telescope to come. The first outcome of this meeting, already in progress, is outlined in the epilogue.

subjects: Very Large Telescope (Chile),  Equipment and supplies,  Congresses,  Very Large Telescope Interferometer (Chile),  Physics,  Astrophysics,  Observations and Techniques Astronomy,  Astrophysics and Astroparticles,  Space Sciences Extraterrestrial Physics