Discussions between CSIC and MPG on the future collaboration of Calar Alto proceed well and should come be concluded before the end of this century. As iterated previously, it is in the interest of both CSIC and the MPG to establish equal responsibilities among both partners in the operation of the observatory. An immediate consequence of this collaboration will be a significantly increased access of Spanish astronomers to Calar Alto telescope time. Starting January 2004, it is foreseen to allocate an equal share of observing time to Spanish and German proposals, and to relax the acceptance procedure for international programmes. The potential proposer to Calar Alto telescopes should verify the call for proposals that will be posted in the beginning of August at
www.mpia-hd.mpg.de/Public/CAHA/Applications/index.html

As a replacement of the former 'Clear Sky Monitor', which never worked, we are happy to confirm the routine operation of the Calar Alto extinction monitor. The instrument has been set up by Ulli Thiele and provides extinction measurements in the V-band during the night. Together the seeing measurements, the extinction values are available in real-time at the telescopes. Extinction and seeing data are written into ASCII files and will be made available for each observing programme and upon request.

PMAS is in regular operation now and is being offered in service mode since the autumn semester H03. The scientific capabilities of PMAS are nicely demonstrated by Lutz Wisotzki & collaborators in their contribution to this newsletter. Further scientific highlights include articles by Fritz et al. on the evolutionary status of the early-type galaxy population in Abell 2390, and by Gänsicke et al. on the cataclysmic variable population of the Hamburg Quasar Survey.

Eva Grebel summarises comprehensively her experience during the 2001--2002 Calar Alto key programme related to the SDSS. The SDSS follow-up observations on Calar Alto were carried out in service mode B, that is, observations were scheduled as regular visitor programmes but carried out by Calar Alto staff. Service B programmes suffer from weather losses just like regularly scheduled visitor programmes, and overall completion levels of some 50% are to be expected on the average. It is the particular strength of service A that weather losses are recovered in a short time. Thus, the most highly ranked programmes carried out in service A will benefit from completion levels well above 80% in general.