European Southern Observatory

The European Southern Observatory (ESO, officially called the European Organization for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere), is a research group for astronomy, made up of fourteen countries from Europe. Made in 1962 to give state-of-the-art facilities and a view the Southern Sky to European astronomers, it is well known for using some of the largest and most advanced telescopes in the world, such as the New Technology Telescope (NTT), the telescope that helped create active optics technology, and the VLT (Very Large Telescope), made of four 8-meter class telescopes and four 1.8-m Auxiliary Telescopes.

European Southern Observatory
Formation	1962
Type	research organization for astronomy
Membership	14 member countries
Website	www.eso.org

Member countries

Country	Accession
Belgium	1962
Germany	1962
France	1962
Netherlands	1962
Sweden	1962
Denmark	1967
Switzerland	1981
Italy	24 May 1982
Portugal	27 June 2000
United Kingdom	8 July 2002
Finland	1 July 2004
Spain	1 July 2006
Czech Republic	1 January 2007
Austria	1 July 2008
Poland	28 October 2014
Ireland	28 September 2018