VISTA is the Visible & Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy, a 4.1m telescope which is being built at Paranal Observatory in Chile. It is expected that it will be operational at the beginning of 2009. It will have a wide field of view, and as the name suggests it will focus on infrared surveys of the sky. VISTA is being built close to ESO'sVLT for a consortium of 18 UK universities led by Queen Mary University of London, and will become an ESO telescope on completion.
VISTA will be operational in early 2009, as the mirror polishing is taking longer than originally anticipated. While it is called the Visible and Infra-red Survey Telescope for Astronomy, it will (initially at least) only have a near-infrared camera. Although it is also capable of operating in the visible with a suitable camera. The near-infrared camera will be the fastest surveying instrument in the near-infrared. Currently WFCAM on the UK InfraRed Telescope (UKIRT) is the fastest. ESO has selected six public surveys for VISTA which will take up 75% of the available observing time.
