Speaker
Description
The powerful array of instruments and flexible rapid response provided by the European Southern Observatory has led to it playing a major role in the science enabled by Swift in the past 20 years. This has included obtaining numerous redshifts, observations of breakthrough events (including several of the highest redshift GRBs) and their host galaxies, and building up of statistical samples allowing exploration of cosmic evolution of their environments. The STARGATE collaboration, building on foundations laid by previous groups, has provided the vehicle for exploiting ESO telescopes for the past several years. I will review some of these highlights, and consider the future role of ESO in high energy transient science in the future as we move into the 30m class era.
