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23 August 2001: Ceres, the first asteroid (minor planet) to be discovered in the Solar System, has held the record as the largest known object of its kind for two centuries. However, recent observations at the European Southern Observatory with the world's first operational virtual telescope 'Astrovirtel' have determined that the newly discovered distant asteroid "2001 KX76" is significantly larger, with a diameter of 1200 km, possibly even 1400 km.

10 April 2001: The Osservatorio Astronomico Capodimonte Deep Field (OACDF) is a multi-colour imaging survey project that is opening a new window towards the distant universe. It is conducted with the ESO Wide Field Imager (WFI) , a 67-million pixel advanced camera attached to the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at the La Silla Observatory (Chile). As a pilot project at the Osservatorio Astronomico di Capodimonte (OAC) [1], the OACDF aims at providing a large photometric database for deep extragalactic studies, with important by-products for galactic and planetary research. Moreover, it also serves to gather experience in the proper and efficient handling of very large data sets, preparing for the arrival of the VLT Survey Telescope (VST) with the 1 x 1 degree 2 OmegaCam facility.

6 March 2001: ESO has released a new image of the famous comet Hale-Bopp, where the large nucleus of ice and dust is still seen glowing. This is very unusual since the comet is currently in a very cold place, between the orbits of Saturn and Uranus, almost 2000 million kilometres away from the Sun.

26 October 2000: Four new moons have been discovered orbiting Saturn, raising the number to twenty-two. This means that Saturn is now the planet in the Solar System with most known satellites. The previous record holder, Uranus, has twenty-one known satellites. Two of the new objects were first seen with the Wide-Field Imager (WFI) camera at the ESO La Silla Observatory (Chile). They have diameters of 10 to 50 km, and calculations have shown that they are almost certainly small satellites (moons) that accompany Saturn on irregular orbits.

6 October 2000: The R Coronae Australis complex of young stars and interstellar gas clouds is one of the nearest star-forming regions, at a distance of approx. 500 light-years from the Sun. It is seen in the southern constellation of that name (The "Southern Crown"). Images of this sky area were recently obtained with the Wide Field Imager (WFI), a 67-million pixel digital camera that is installed at the 2.2-metre MPG/ESO Telescope at ESO's La Silla Observatory.

21 December 1999: A main scientific application of wide-angle imaging in astronomy is the census and photometric and morphological classification (i.e. by colour and shape) of large quantities of celestial objects in order to identify sources of particular interest that warrant in-depth follow-up observations. This is normally done by means of spectroscopy, a basic observing technique that allows much more comprehensive physical diagnostics than does an image. However, detailed spectral observations requires the great light-collecting power of large telescopes such as the Very Large Telescope (VLT). In the past, many important classes of astronomical objects have been discovered by such survey work. Another central goal of wide-field imaging is the identification and characterisation of structures that extend over large sky areas, e.g., of the Milky Way in which we live, of comparatively nearby galaxies, and even of the Universe as a whole. The structure of astronomical objects reveals much about their history of formation which, because of the inherently very long ("astronomical") timescales, cannot be directly observed.

22 June 1999: The Wide Field Imager (WFI) , a 67-million pixel digital camera at the MPG/ESO 2.2-m telescope at the La Silla Observatory continues to produce remarkable images for astronomical research. At the same time, many of these are of great aesthetic value and provide impressive views into sky regions with unsual objects. Earlier this year, the WFI recorded a number of fields in the direction of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a satellite galaxy to our own Milky Way Galaxy, deep down in the southern sky. It is located at a distance of about 170,000 light-years and contains many nebulae and stellar clusters.Two colour composite photos of "H II regions" in the LMC are shown here, centred near N44 and N119 [1]. They are nebulae in which (some of) the gas is ionized, i.e. the atoms have lost one or more electrons by the action of energetic ultraviolet radiation emitted by very hot and luminous stars in this area. Both of these nebulae are seen in front of rich star fields in this galaxy in which there are also several stellar clusters.

18 May 1999: International teams of astronomers are now busy working on new and exciting data obtained during the last week with telescopes at the European Southern Observatory (ESO). Their object of study is the remnant of a mysterious cosmic explosion far out in space, first detected as a gigantic outburst of gamma rays on May 10. Gamma-Ray Bursters (GRBs) are brief flashes of very energetic radiation - they represent by far the most powerful type of explosion known in the Universe and their afterglow in optical light can be 10 million times brighter than the brightest supernovae [1]. The May 10 event ranks among the brightest one hundred of the over 2500 GRB's detected in the last decade.

30 April 1999: The new Wide-Field Imager (WFI) at the MPG/ESO 2.2-m telescope at the La Silla observatory continues to obtain impressive images of the southern sky. Recently, a series of images were obtained of areas in the Milky Way band, including some in which interstellar nebulae of gas and dust are seen. Each frame records 8184 x 8196, or over 67 million, pixels in a sky field of 32 x 32 arcmin 2. The present photos show the RCW 108 complex of bright and dark nebulae in the southern association Ara OB1, a star-forming region in the constellation Ara (The Altar), deep in the southern sky.

26 March 1999: The portrait of NGC 4945 above adorns the centrefold of the most recent issue of the ESO Messenger (no. 95; March 1999). It provides another impressive demonstration of the observational capabilities of the new WFI Camera at the MPG/ESO 2.2-m telescope at La Silla.

15 January 1999: The newest astronomical instrument at the La Silla observatory is a super-camera with no less than sixty-seven million image elements. It represents the outcome of a joint project between the European Southern Observatory (ESO), the Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie (MPI-A) in Heidelberg (Germany) and the Osservatorio Astronomico di Capodimonte (OAC) near Naples (Italy), and was installed at the 2.2-m MPG/ESO telescope in December 1998. Following careful adjustment and testing, it has now produced the first spectacular test images.

19 June 1995: Based on exciting new data obtained with the ROSAT X-ray satellite and a ground-based telescope at the ESO La Silla Observatory, a team of European astronomers [2] has just discovered a very distant cluster of galaxies with unique properties. It emits the strongest X-ray emission of any cluster ever observed by ROSAT and is accompanied by two extraordinarily luminous arcs that represent the gravitationally deflected images of even more distant objects. The combination of these unusual characteristics makes this cluster, now known as RXJ1347.5-1145, a most interesting object for further cosmological studies.

28 July 1988: Thanks to observations performed under near-perfect conditions at the La Silla observatory, it has been possible to show that the image of a distant quasar consists of no less than four components. Most appropriately, the object has now become known as the cloverleaf quasar. The peculiar image is due to the effect of "gravitational lensing", a phenomenon predicted by Einstein's General Theory of Relativity and explained at the end of this Press Release.