X-shooter

The multi-wavelength medium resolution spectrograph X-shooter, mounted on the Cassegrain focus of  Kueyen, the VLT's Unit Telescope 2 (UT2). X-shooter, the first of the VLT's second generation instruments, covers a wide wavelength range from 300 nm up to 2500 nm (from ultraviolet to near infrared). The Very Large Telescope (VLT) is composed of four 8.2-metre UTs, each of them equipped with 2 or 3 state-of-the-art specialised instruments. X-shooter, which started operations in 2008, is designed to explore, the properties of rare, unusual or unidentified sources, such as gamma-ray bursts, among others. The VLT instrumentation programme is the most ambitious programme ever conceived for a single observatory.