How Do I submit an ESO proposal?

Proposals for observing time on all facilities of the La Silla Paranal Observatory (VLT/I, VISTA, NTT, 3.6m, APEX) must be submitted using the p1 web system:

www.eso.org/p1

This is accessible via your User Portal credentials (if you do not know what the User Portal is read this article).  

The Principal Investigator and all Co-Investigators must have an ESO User Portal Account. If you have not an account, you can simply register and create one.

Note that proposals prepared with the former ESOFORM system cannot be submitted in the new system unchanged.

The system has short “mini-helps” (light blue boxes) as well as a help button at the top of each page, pointing to the relevant section of the help page.

p1 Demo

The new p1 user interface collects the same information as the old ESOFORM did, but the workflow may differs as it has been optimized to offer a more intuitive approach for the formulation of the observations and specification of, e.g., time constraints. Each step of the proposal preparation workflow includes 'mini-help' options that summarize the main instructions for that specific step.

We recommend that you familiarize yourself with the new interface by creating test proposals using the public p1 demo. Here, you can get acquainted with the proposal preparation workflow, practice how to formulate your observing runs and set-ups, and test the submission. Remember that this is a public demo interface, hence be mindful about the information you are sharing.

The new p1 system offers several new features and allows users (PI, delegated PI, coIs):

• to edit collaboratively the proposal;
• to correct an already submitted proposal (before the deadline);
• to visualize at a glance the visibility of a target and the probability of realization of the requested conditions;
• to retrieve target information directly from Simbad.

p1 is implemented using Google’s Angular framework and it should work on any recent browser (Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari). The system requirements of p1 are less stringent than basic security requirements. If you suspect that p1 does not run because your browser is too old, you most likely have a dangerously old version. For more details, refer to Angular browser support .

General comments and suggestions related to Phase 1 material preparation and p1 are welcome and should be sent to p1@eso.org