British astronomers are bracing themselves for the project cuts that may be needed if Britain is to join the European Southern Observatory (ESO). This is the eight-member organization that operates the recently opened Very Large Telescope on Mount Paranal in Chile.

The Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC) has already opened negotiations with ESO officials in Munich over possible membership (see Nature 405, 382– 383; 2000). It believes that, like space and particle physics before it, the price of world-beating astronomy is now beyond the reach of individual countries.

But the cost of joining the ESO will be high, with an entry fee of at least £60 million (US$90 million) and a further £12 million every year. PPARC officials say that entry depends both on whether the government will provide extra funding in the next spending round, and whether it can find about £7 million a year from existing operating costs.

There was little dispute over the principle of joining the ESO among 150 astronomers who came together last week at a meeting in London organized by the Royal Astronomical Society. If Britain does not join the ESO, one warned, it would create a “lost generation” of young astronomers.

The question now is how to pay for it. According to Ian Corbett of PPARC, cost-cutting options include withdrawing from the Anglo-Australian Telescope in New South Wales, Australia, and cutbacks at the Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes in Spain and the United Kingdom Infra-Red Telescope and the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope in Hawaii.

One possibility is that Britain might bargain for a reduction in the annual fee with a payment in kind of European access to UK facilities. Several possibilities were raised, including the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA) in Chile.

But Jim Emerson, head of the consortium of UK universities that recently won the bid for the VISTA telescope, pointed out that VISTA is not owned by PPARC but by the consortium, so it “can't just be given away”.

Catherine Cesarsky, director general of the ESO, says discussions about trading are premature and that, if any trades are made, they would be only a small part of the overall deal.