An organization founded in 1962 by a consortium of European countries to establish observing facilities in the southern hemisphere. It currently has sixteen member nations: Austria, Belgium, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK. Its headquarters are at Garching, near Munich, Germany. ESO owns and operates two observing sites in Chile: La Silla Observatory and Paranal Observatory, the latter being the site of ESO’s Very Large Telescope. ESO is also participating in the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) project and is building the 39-m Extremely Large Telescope.

http://www.eso.org Official observatory website.