VLT Survey Telescope
The VLT Survey Telescope (VST) is a telescope located at ESO's Paranal Observatory in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile. It is housed in an enclosure immediately adjacent to the four Very Large Telescope (VLT) Unit Telescopes on the summit of Cerro Paranal. The VST is a wide-field survey telescope with a field of view twice as broad as the full Moon. It is the largest telescope in the world designed to exclusively survey the sky in visible light.
| Alternative names | VST |
|---|---|
| Part of | Paranal Observatory |
| Location(s) | Cerro Paranal, Antofagasta Province, Antofagasta Region, Chile |
| Coordinates | 24°37′41″S 70°24′18″W |
| Organization | European Southern Observatory |
| Altitude | 2,635 m (8,645 ft) |
| First light | 8 June 2011 |
| Telescope style | Ritchey–Chrétien telescope |
| Diameter | 2.65 m (8 ft 8 in) |
| Secondary diameter | 0.938 m (3 ft 0.9 in) |
| Angular resolution | 0.216 arcsecond |
| Focal length | 14.416 m (47 ft 3.6 in) |
| Mounting | altazimuth mount |
| Website | vstportal |
Location of VLT Survey Telescope | |
| Related media on Commons | |
The VST program is a cooperation between the Osservatorio Astronomico di Capodimonte (OAC), Naples, Italy, and the European Southern Observatory (ESO) that began in 1997. The OAC is one of the institute members of Istituto Nazionale di AstroFisica (INAF), which created a separate institute for the coordination of both technological and scientific aspects of the project, named Centro VST a Napoli (VSTceN). VSTcen was founded and directed by Prof. Massimo Capaccioli of the VST project, and hosted at the OAC. ESO and VSTceN collaborated in the commission phase, while ESO was responsible for the civil engineering works and the dome on site. The telescope has now started observations and ESO is solely responsible for managing its operations and maintenance.