English: May 25 2013 is an important anniversary for the Very Large Telescope – it is exactly fifteen years since the first light on the first of its four Unit Telescopes. Since then the four original giant telescopes have been joined by the four small Auxiliary Telescopes that form part of the VLT Interferometer (VLTI). The VLT is one of the most powerful and productive ground-based astronomical facilities in existence. In 2012 more than 600 refereed scientific papers based on data from the VLT and VLTI were published. This ESOcast shows spectacular images from the VLT for every year of its operation.

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Credit:ESO

Editing: Herbert Zodet.
Web and technical support: Mathias André and Raquel Yumi Shida.
Written by: Richard Hook and Herbert Zodet.
Music: Toomas Erm.
Footage and photos: ESO, Christoph Malin (christophmalin.com), José Francisco Salgado (josefrancisco.org), P.D. Barthel, acknowledgments: Mark Neeser (Kapteyn Institute, Groningen) and Richard Hook (ST/ECF, Garching, Germany), M.McCaughrean et al. (AIP), M. Andersen (AIP), Mario Nonino, Piero Rosati and the ESO GOODS Team, S. Gillessen et al., Y. Beletsky (LCO), D. Coe (STScI)/J. Merten (Heidelberg/Bologna), R. Chini, Sergey Stepanenko, T. Preibisch and B. Bailleul.
Directed by: Herbert Zodet.

Executive producer: Lars Lindberg Christensen.