[1] The VST program is a cooperation between the Osservatorio Astronomico di Capodimonte (OAC), Naples, Italy, and the European Southern Observatory (ESO) that began in 1997.

[1] The VST is an alt-azimuthal wide-field survey telescope with a primary mirror diameter of 2.65 meters that was constructed from 2007 to 2011 at the ESO Cerro Paranal Observatory, in Chile.

With a field of view of one square degree (roughly two full moons), its main scientific role is as a wide-field imaging instrument for exploring the large-scale structure of the universe (as visible from the southern hemisphere), able to identify the most suitable candidates for detailed examination by the VLT.

[2] Together with its camera OmegaCAM, the VST is able to obtain a high angular resolution (0.216 arcsec/pixel), and it is capable of performing stand-alone survey projects in the visible part of the spectrum.

Also in the primary mirror cell is another instrument able to modify the telescope's optical configuration by moving from a corrector composed by a double set of lenses, to an atmospheric dispersion corrector (ADC) composed of a counter-rotating set of prisms, able to correct the optical dispersion phenomena due to the variation of air mass induced by changing the altitude angle.

[5][8] At its Cassegrain focus, the VST hosts an imaging wide-field camera (OmegaCAM), comprising a mosaic of 32 2Kx4K CCDs (268 megapixels total), and produced by an international consortium between the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, and the ESO.

They focus on a wide range of astronomical issues from searching for highly energetic quasars to understanding the nature of dark energy.

The end products from the processing will be huge lists of the objects found, as well as images, and these will be made available to astronomers worldwide for scientific analysis.

[1] In planetary science, the survey telescope aims to discover and study remote Solar System bodies such as trans-Neptunian objects, as well as search for extrasolar planet transits.

The Galactic plane will also be extensively studied with VST, which will look for signatures of tidal interactions in the Milky Way, and will provide astronomers with data crucial to understand the structure and evolution of our Galaxy.

Further afield, the VST will explore nearby galaxies, extragalactic and intra-cluster planetary nebulae, and will perform surveys of faint object and micro-lensing events.

The VST will also look for cosmic structures at medium-high redshift, active galactic nuclei and quasars to further our understanding of galaxy formation and the Universe's early history.

Omega Centauri, in the constellation of Centaurus (The Centaur), is the largest globular cluster in the sky, but the very wide field of view of VST and its powerful camera OmegaCAM can encompass even the faint outer regions of this object.

The image hints at the power of the VST and OmegaCAM for surveying the extragalactic Universe and for mapping the low brightness objects of the galactic halo.