ESPRESSO is a high-resolution, highly stable spectrograph for the VLT. It will inherit and enhance most capabilities from HARPS and UVES, combining both stability and efficiency. The main science driver will be the detection and characterization of Earth-like planets, but many additional science cases will benefit from its highly stable

The first purpose of ESPRESSO is to develop a competitive, innovative high-resolution spectrograph to fully exploit the potentiality of the Very Large Telescope (VLT) of the European Southern Observatory and to allow new science. It is thus important to develop the VLT array concept bearing in mind the need to obtain the highest stability, while

The European Solar Telescope (EST) is a European collaborative project to build a 4m class solar telescope in the Canary Islands, which is now in its design study phase. The telescope will provide diffraction limited performance for several instruments observing simultaneously at the Coudé focus at different wavelengths. In order to guarantee the

The constituents of the cosmic IR background (CIB) are studied at its peak wavelengths (100 and 160 μm) by exploiting Herschel/PACS observations of the GOODS-N, Lockman Hole, and COSMOS fields in the PACS evolutionary probe (PEP) guaranteed-time survey. The GOODS-N data reach 3σ depths of ~3.0 mJy at 100 μm and ~5.7 mJy at 160 μm. At these levels

We present the science, design and performances of DIORAMAS, an imager and multi-slit spectrograph for the European Extremely Large Telescope. It covers a wide 6.8x6.8 arcmin2 field, a large wavelength range 0.37 to 1.6 microns. The exceptional performances of this concept will enable extremely deep images to magnitudes AB~30 and high multiplex