ESO DOI Service

• Rodler, Florian [European Southern Observatory (ESO)]
• De Rosa, Robert J. [European Southern Observatory (ESO)]
• Johnston, Evelyn [Diego Portales University, Santiago, Chile]
• Lucertini, Francesca [European Southern Observatory (ESO)]
• Sbordone, Luca [European Southern Observatory (ESO)]
• Sedaghati, Elyar [European Southern Observatory (ESO)]

The La Silla Observing School is a series of training workshops in the use of telescopes and astronomical instruments for students and early-career researchers in astronomy. Following schools in 2016, 2018 and 2020, the fourth La Silla Observing School was held over two weeks in February 2024 and was hosted by ESO’s Office for Science and the La Silla Observatory. A total of 20 MSc students, PhD students and postdoctoral researchers from South and North America, Europe and Australia participated. They attended lectures on various observing strategies and astronomical instrumentation, on diversity, equity and inclusion in astronomy, as well as soft skills. For the hands-on part at the observatory, the students were supervised by five tutors. Four small research projects were offered, using three telescopes and four instruments. The students in each research group went through the full process of defining and discussing the observing strategies, conducting the observations, reducing and analysing the data and finally presenting the results to the scientific community at the ESO Vitacura offices. Given the high demand from the astronomical community for such educational programs, ESO is currently exploring the possibility of offering the La Silla Observing School on a yearly basis. Accordingly, the next school is foreseen for February 2025.