The VST from above

Wide-angle view of the VLT Survey Telescope (VST) taken from the top of its enclosure. The structure of the telescope is ready to receive its "eye", a 2.6-metre-diameter mirror. The VST will be equipped with a 256-megapixel camera, OmegaCam, with a field of view four times the area of the full Moon. Together with the VISTA infrared survey telescope, located on a peak near Cerro Paranal, the VST will produce far more data every night than all the other instruments of the VLT combined — a total of more than 100 terabytes of data per year.