Phase 3 denotes the process in which principal investigators of ESO observing programmes return their reduced data products to ESO for storage in the ESO archive and subsequent data publication to the scientific community. Phase 3 is mandatory for ESO Public Surveys and for ESO Large Programmes since period 75.

The External Data Product group is happy to announce that the Phase 3 infrastructure is now in operation, and ESO is ready to accept the data products from the VISTA public surveys.

Other ESO observing programmes will be handled through the Phase 3 system as soon as the underlying data products standard and infrastructure have been extended to cover the respective instruments and data product types.

The Phase 3 web pages posting the documentation for the policies, data standards and user manuals, are available from:

http://www.eso.org/sci/observing/phase3.html

The External Data products group will be responsible for the support to the ESO public survey and large programme teams for their Phase 3 activities. Interested users can send their questions regarding Phase 3 to the EDP group via email at "usd-help@eso.org, subject: Phase 3".