ESO Garching, 16-20 October, 2023
With the change of operations model of OmegaCam@VST (first light Oct 2011, now under INAF agreement with ESO) and VIRCAM@VISTA (first light June 2008, decommissioned March 2023), a decade of targeted wide-field imaging at ESO is coming to an end. Both instruments were largely dedicated to public imaging surveys, which have amassed a total of nearly 60000 hours of telescope time.
To commemorate these milestones, this 5-day workshop reviews the legacy left by these instruments and summarizes the variety of scientific impact that these imaging surveys have on a wide range of research topics in astronomy, both in galactic and extra-galactic science, and that have helped to shape the picture of the universe that we have today: galactic star formation, the structure of the Milky Way, stellar populations of the galactic plane, transient and variable objects over exploring stellar populations in the Magellanic Clouds to studying dark energy, investigating galaxy evolution and the evolution of galaxy clusters, baryonic acoustic oscillations as well as mass assembly in the very first galaxies.
The main goal of the workshop is to further advance science cases, create international collaborations among research groups and encourage new ideas from/within the community to enlarge the exploitation of the high-quality VIRCAM and OmegaCAM survey data and last but not least, to promote the usage of the archival data form these facilities.
The synergy of the VIRCAM/OmegaCAM legacy with the new generation of wide-field imaging facilities and missions, e.g. Euclid, Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, LSST/VRO and others will be discussed.