FLAMES (Fibre Large Area Multi-Element Spectrograph) is an instrument facility for multi-object spectroscopy installed at UT2 (Kueyen) of the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT) at Cerro Paranal (Chile). A Consortium of four Italian Institutes (named ITAL-FLAMES) participated in the development of this facility. The ITAL-FLAMES Consortium comprises the following INAF Institutes: Osservatorio Astronomico di Bologna (OABO), Osservatorio Astronomico di Trieste (OATS), Osservatorio Astronomico di Cagliari (OACA) and Osservatorio Astronomico di Palermo (OAPA).

The PI of the ITAL-FLAMES Consortium is Carla Cacciari (OABO); the scientific coordinators at the participating Institutions are Paolo Molaro for OATS, Carla Cacciari for OABO, Ignazio Porceddu for OACA and Roberto Pallavicini for OAPA. The participation of the ITAL-FLAMES Consortium to the development of FLAMES covered the years from late 1999 to the successul commissioning of the facility at Paranal in 2002. The instrument has been offered to the general community since April 2003. The ITAL-FLAMES consortium has received 11 nights of Guaranteed Time in return to its contribution in funds and manpower. These GT observations have been carried out over the period 2003-2004.

The participation of the Osservatorio Astronomico di Palermo to the FLAMES project consisted in the development, in collaboration with the Osservatorio Astronomico di Cagliari, of the Data Reduction Software (DRS) for the fibre link of FLAMES to the Ultraviolet Echelle Spectrograph UVES. The link allows the acquisition of up to 7 UVES spectra (plus a sky spectrum) at a resolution of R=40000 simultaneously with intermediate resolution (R=2000) spectra of up to 130 objects by the multi-object spectrograph GIRAFFE. Researches of the Palermo Observatory are currently using data obtained with FLAMES in both the guaranteed and open times for abundance analysis of open cluster stars.

Technical information about the FLAMES facility, as well as about the UVES and GIRAFFE spectrographs, can be found in the FLAMES web site at ESO (www.eso.org/instruments/flames).

last update: 2004, 24 Feb