PPA Roadmap

VISTA is the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy which is being built at ESO's Cerro Paranal Observatory in Chile.  The telescope will, on completion, be the world's largest telescope dedicated to ground-based survey work.  Following commissioning, ESO will operate VISTA as an ESO facility for conducting surveys from 2007.

Scientific Impact

VISTA will be capable of supporting a wise range of survey projects.  Examples of these may include:

• Studying how galaxies and clusters of galaxies formed and evolved
• Measuring the Galaxy's population of brown dwarf stars
• Testing rival hypotheses for the nature of dark matter in the Galaxy
• Constructing a 3D map that covers about 5% of the entire observable universe
• Testing models of quasar variability

Strategic Priority

VISTA will build on the UK's position as a world leader in survey astronomy and will form an important strategic contribution towards the UK's membership of ESA.  VISTA's capability will allow our astronomers to attack areas of all PPARC's key astronomy science questions.

Timeliness

The start of VISTA operations comes at a time when the UK is building on building on its infrared survey astronomy expertise in the northern hemisphere with UKIRT and WFCAM.  When operation begins, the world-leading survey speed of VISTA will be complemented by a range of new specialist instruments on other facilities such as Gemini and ESO VLT providing the community with a leading astronomy capability in the optical/IR waveband.

Track Record

The UK has a strong record in optical survey astronomy.  Since the 1970's and construction of the first Schmidt telescope, the UK has developed expertise in telescope technologies, instrumentation and design.  Much of the instrumentation for the UKIRT telescope was designed and built at the UK ATC, who now lead the design and construction of VISTA.    

Momentum

The Telescope and camera instrumentation are now in an advanced construction phase.  Preparations for the data handling approach are well underway in UK groups.

UK Involvement

VISTA is a UK project.  PPARC is responsible for organising the design, construction and commissioning of the VISTA telescope, IR camera, enclosure and all associated items, through its UK Astronomy Technology Centre at the Royal Observatory Edinburgh, which acts as the VISTA Project Office (VPO).  RAL and a number of UK universities have also been involved with the design and build of various technologies for this project.

Risk

Costs and delays to the commissioning.

Cost

£24.8M from Joint Infrastructure Fund (JIF) funding.

Other Factors