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French meeting of the Widefield Spectroscopic Telescope
25-27 Mar 2026 Nice (France)
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Meeting description and objectives Image credit: Rossella Spiga (INAF) WST (https://www.wstelescope.com/) is an ambitious facility that will be dedicated to spectroscopic surveys. The current baseline foresees a 12-m main mirror, with parallel operation of a large field-of-view (3 sq. degrees) and high multiplex (30,000 and 2,000) multi-object spectrograph facility with both low- and high-resolution modes (MOS), along with a giant panoramic (3 x 3 sq. arcmin) integral field spectrograph (IFS). These characteristics place WST far ahead of existing and planned MOS and IFS facilities: it will fill a crucial gap in the world-wide astronomical landscape, enabling transformative science in the areas of cosmology; galaxy assembly, evolution, and enrichment, including our own Milky Way; the origin of stars and planets; time-domain and multi-messenger astrophysics. The WST consortium has recently been funded through the Horizon Europe framework to carry out a comprehensive three-year concept study. We aim to propose WST to ESO as the next large program after ELT completion. The proposal, according to the Expanding Horizons ESO initiative (see https://next.eso.org/), is due in June 2027. France, with CNRS and CEA, is leading the WST consortium and has many key roles, both scientific and technological. Although the facility is foreseen for 2040+, the decision will happen very soon, and thus it is very timely to discuss the strategic role our community can play in such an ambitious project. The meeting has different aims:
Specific topics include:
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