VST - The New VLT Survey Telescope

0:00 A new telescope for mapping the skies is about to start work at ESO’s Paranal Observatory
0:10 in Chile. The VLT Survey Telescope, or VST, with the 268 megapixel OmegaCAM camera at
0:19 its heart, is the latest addition to the observatory. It is the largest telescope in the world designed
0:26 to survey the sky in visible light.
0:28 This is the ESOcast! Cutting-edge science and life behind the scenes of ESO, the European
0:40 Southern Observatory. Exploring the ultimate frontier with our host Dr J, a.k.a. Dr Joe
0:49 Liske.
0:51 Hello and welcome to the ESOcast. The new telescope is called the VLT Survey Telescope,
0:57 or VST for short, and the special thing about it is that it has a very wide field of view —
1:02 about twice as broad as the full Moon. It’s dedicated to mapping the skies both very quickly
1:08 and with very high image quality. The VST is housed in an enclosure right next to the
1:14 VLT Unit Telescopes on the summit of Cerro Paranal under the pristine skies of one of
1:19 the best observing sites on the planet.
1:22 Now, over the next few years the VST and its huge camera OmegaCAM will be busy making some
1:27 very detailed maps of the southern skies and in this episode you’ll get to see the very
1:33 first released images from this brand new telescope.
1:41 The VST is a visible light telescope that perfectly complements the VISTA infrared survey
1:47 telescope. The unique combination of the VST and VISTA will allow many interesting objects
1:53 to be identified that can then be studied in detail with the powerful telescopes of
1:59 the VLT.
2:06 The VST is a state-of-the-art 2.6-metre telescope equipped with an active optics system that
2:11 keeps the two mirrors of the telescope perfectly aligned at all times in order to ensure the
2:16 highest possible image quality. Now, at its core, behind huge lenses, lies the OmegaCAM
2:23 camera which was built around no less than 32 CCD detectors which, together, create a
2:29 whopping 268 megapixel image.
2:33 Now, the camera also contains some extra CCDs that help with the telescope guiding and the
2:38 active optics system, as well as some absolutely enormous colour filters. Both the telescope
2:44 and the camera were designed to take full advantage of the excellent observing conditions
2:48 on Paranal.
2:51 The VST is a joint venture between INAF, the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics,
2:56 and ESO. INAF, and in particular its Capodimonte Observatory in Naples, designed and built
3:02 the telescope, while ESO was responsible for the civil engineering works at the site. OmegaCAM
3:08 was built and designed by a consortium of astronomers working in the Netherlands, Germany,
3:12 Italy, and at ESO.
3:14 The VST will make three public surveys over the next five years.
3:25 One survey, called KIDS, will image several regions of the sky away from the Milky Way.
3:31I t will help astronomers understand more about dark matter, dark energy and galaxy evolution,
3:37 and find many new galaxy clusters and high-redshift quasars.
3:43 The VST ATLAS survey will cover a larger area of sky and will focus on determining the properties
3:49 of dark energy. Like KIDS, it will also hunt for far-away galaxies and quasars.
3:55 The third survey, VPHAS+, will image the central plane of the Milky Way to map the structure
4:01 of the Galactic disc and its star-formation history. It will yield a catalogue of around