Abstract
The European Southern Observatory (ESO) is an European international organization established in 1962 with the main goals of promoting observational astronomical research in the Southern hemisphere, and providing to the European astronomical community with high level facilities and instrumentation that would be unaffordable to any of its member countries separately.
ESO consists of eight member countries at present (Belgium, Denmark, Germany, France, Italy, Netherlands, Sweden, and Switzerland; Portugal will become a member in the near future). Its headquarters are at present in Garching, near Munich (Germany), and it operates two major observing sites in Chile: the La Silla observatory, whose facilities include two 3.5 m telescopes and a 15 m submillimiter telescope; and the Paranal observatory, where construction of the Very Large Telescope (VLT), an
array of four 8.2 m telescopes, is taking place.