VLT Survey Telescope
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| Organisation | INAF VSTceN - ESO |
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| Location(s) | Cerro Paranal Observatory, Chile |
| Coordinates | 24°37′38″S 70°24′13″W / 24.6272°S 70.4036°WCoordinates: 24°37′38″S 70°24′13″W / 24.6272°S 70.4036°W |
| Altitude | 2,600 m (8,500 ft) |
| Wavelength | from UV to I |
| Built | in Italy |
| First light | 8 June 2011 
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| Telescope style |
Ritchey–Chrétien telescope
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| Diameter | 2.6 m |
| Angular resolution | 0.216 arcsec/pixel |
| Focal length | 14416 mm |
| Mounting | ALT-AZ (Cassegrain) |
| Website | http://vstportal.oacn.inaf.it |
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The VLT Survey Telescope (VST) is the latest telescope to be added to 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.
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.
The VST is an alt-azimuthal wide-field survey telescope with a primary mirror diameter of 2.65 meters that was constructed from 2007–2011 at the ESO Cerro Paranal Observatory, in Chile. With a field of view of one square degree (roughly two full moons), its main scientific role is as a wide-field imaging instrument for exploring the large-scale structure of the universe (as visible from the southern hemisphere), able to identify the most suitable candidates for detailed examination by the VLT. Together with its camera OmegaCAM, the VST is able to obtain a high angular resolution (0.216 arcsec/pixel), and it is capable of performing stand-alone survey projects in the visible part of the spectrum.
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