With the aim of taking full advantage of the complementarity of ground-based and space-borne observing facilities, ESA and ESO have agreed to establish an environment for those scientific programmes that require observations with both the XMM-Newton X-ray observatory and the ESO VLT(I) telescopes to achieve outstanding and competitive results.
By agreement with the XMM-Newton observatory, ESO may award up to 290 ks
(80hr) of XMM-Newton observing time.
Similarly, the XMM-Newton project may award up to 80 hours of ESO VLT(I)
observing time.
This applies to the duration of an XMM-Newton cycle, which normally
extends over two ESO observing periods.
Proposers wishing to make use of this opportunity will have to submit a
single proposal in response to either the XMM-Newton or the ESO call
for proposals: proposals for the same programme submitted to both
observatories will be rejected.
Although time is requested on both observatories, it will be unnecessary
to submit proposals to two separate reviews.
A proposal submitted to ESO will be reviewed exclusively by the ESO's OPC;
a proposal submitted to the XMM-Newton observatory will be reviewed
exclusively by the XMM-Newton OTAC.
Proposals that request different amounts of observing time on each
facility should be submitted to the observatory for which the
greatest amount of time is required.
The primary criterion for the award of observing time is that both
ESO VLT(I) and XMM-Newton data are required to meet the scientific objectives
of the proposal.
It is not essential that the project requires simultaneous XMM-Newton
and ESO telescope observations.
Targets of Opportunity and "Triggered Observations" are excluded from
this cooperative programme.
It is the proposers' responsibility to provide a full and comprehensive
scientific and technical justification for the requested observing time
on both facilities.
Both the ESO and XMM-Newton observatories will perform feasibility
checks of the approved proposals.
They each reserve the right to reject any observation determined to be
unfeasible for any reason.
The rejection by one observatory could jeopardize the entire proposed
science programme.
Apart from the above, for both the ESO and the XMM-Newton observatory,
the general policies and procedures currently in force for the final
selection of the proposals, the allocation of observing time,
the execution of the observations, and the data rights remain unchanged.
Scientists can apply for joint XMM-Newton/VLT(I) programme time by
selecting the proposal type ``XMM-Newton/VLT(I)''.
The ``Remarks'' field, which is offered in the RPS should be used to
briefly describe the instrument modes and observing time requests
for VLT(I).