High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The VISTA (Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy) is a reflecting telescope with a 4.1 metre mirror, located at the Paranal Observatory in Chile. It is operated by the European Southern Observatory and saw first light in December 2009. VISTA is a survey telescope working at infrared wavelengths, and is by far the largest telescope in the world dedicated to surveying the sky at near-infrared wavelengths. The telescope has only one instrument: VIRCAM, the Vista InfraRed CAMera. This is a 3-tonne camera containing 16 special detectors sensitive to infrared light, with a combined total of 67 million pixels.