The Early Years of the European Southern Observatory: An Effort in Europeanization

For a fully documented and much more detailed account of the earliest history of ESO the reader is referred to a series of articles by the present author appearing in the ESO Messenger beginning with no. 54 (December 1988). This series is expected to appear in book form about the middle of 1991. The messenger — El mensajero is the quarterly information journal published by ESO. Principal source of documentation for the Messenger series are the ESO Historical Archives (EHA) and the files of the Head of Administration of ESO (FHA), both at the ESO Headquarters at Garching, Germany. The structure and the status of the EHA as established by the author in 1988 are briefly described in the Messenger , 54 (Dec. 1988), 3. Since then, the EHA have been extended by incorporation of more recently received documents. It is the intention of the author to publish an updated Inventory in the Messenger soon after the completion of the series. Access to EHA and FHA is at the discretion of the ESO Directorate.

Messenger , 54 (Dec. 1988); EHA-I.A.1.1.

Messenger , 54 (Dec. 1988); EHA-I.A.1.3. and EHA-I.C.1.1.g.

Messenger , 54 (Dec. 1988), 6; letter by Borgmann C. W. , Director of the Ford Foundation, to Oort J. H. of 2 Oct. 1959 in EHA-I.C.1.3. See also the Note by Edmondson F. K. in Messenger , 54, 7.

The final version of the Convention in the languages of the member states and an English translation occur in the collection Basic Texts issued by the ESO Directorate (last edition January 1987).

A comprehensive report on the entire testing project (but excluding the Marseilles and Tübingen work) was compiled by Ursula Mayer and published by the ESO Directorate in 1967 under the title Astronomical site testing in South Africa.

Messenger , 56 (June 1989), 24, with table of comparison between South African and Chilean sites based on a report in ESO Bulletin no. 1 of Nov. 1966.

Messenger , 56 (June 1989), 22; for reports on the Summit Meeting see EHA-I.A.2.7. and EHA-I.C.1.5.f.

Messenger , 56 (June 1989), 27, 28; Otto Heckmann , Sterne Kosmos Weltmodelle (Munich and Zürich, 1976), 289–97.

Heckmann , op. cit. (ref. 9); letters of Heckmann to Oort of 30 March and 21 April 1964 in EHA-I.A.2.10.

First results showing appreciable systematic errors in the southern FK4 right ascensions were published by Anguita C. Noël F. in Astronomical journal , lxxiv (1969), 954–7.

Descriptions of the 1-m telescope and its first photometers occur in ESO Bulletin no. 1 (Nov. 1966) and no. 5 (Dec. 1968). For descriptions of the 1.5-m telescope and its first spectrographs, see ESO Bulletin no. 3 (Feb. 1968), no. 7 (Sept. 1969) and no. 11 (Feb. 1975).

Messenger , 59 (March 1990), 27ff; the dedication speeches are in ESO Bulletin no. 6 (July 1969). See also B. E. Westerlund's report in Sky & telescope , xxxvii (1969), 340–7.

Messenger , 58 (Dec. 1989), 30; the dedication speech of the President of Council, Funke G. , is in ESO Bulletin no. 3 (Feb. 1968).

The Magellanic Clouds , ed. by Muller A. B. (Utrecht, 1971).

Messenger , 59 (March 1990), 33.

The history of the 3.6-m Telescope Project is the subject of reports in the Messenger , 61 and 62 (Sept. and Dec. 1990).

The history of the Schmidt Telescope and its related first survey programmes is scheduled to appear in the Messenger , 63 (March 1991).

An extensive description of the ESO Sky Survey projects and the collaboration with the British Science Research Council has been published by West R. M. in ESO Bulletin no. 10 (May 1974).

Messenger , 34 (Dec. 1983) contains a brief announcement.

See the Messenger , 48 (June 1987) and no. 57 (Sept. 1989) for descriptions.

Messenger , 25 (Sept. 1981) published a brief announcement.

See Messenger , 47 (March 1987), 53 (Sept. 1988) and 56 (June 1989) for descriptions of the project.

See announcement and descriptions in the Messenger , 50 (Dec. 1987).

For particulars see Blaauw A. , Europhysics news (Bulletin of the European Physical Society), vi/12 (Dec. 1975), 3–5; also; Messenger , 60 (June 1990), 31.