VLT and VISTA in early sunlight*

This early morning shot shows the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA) in front of the Paranal summit. VISTA is a wide-field telescope that will perform a series of very broad surveys of the sky in infrared light. Thanks to its fairly large primary mirror, with a diameter of 4m, these surveys will show quite faint objects. The goal of these surveys is to create large catalogues of celestial objects for statistical studies and to identify new targets for the VLT. This picture was obtained in November 2007 during sunrise.