VLT mount. Time-exposure image of the partially- completed mount for the Very Large Telescope (VLT) which will be based at the European Southern Obs- ervatory site at Cerro Paranal, Chile. The mount will carry an 8-metre diameter mirror. Here, the mirror's weight & size is simulated by a mock-up (brown, at lower centre). This 500-tonne azimuthal mount can rotate the mirror vertically & horizon- tally. The VLT will have 4 such telescopes mounted side by side. Together they will have the light- collecting power of a 16-metre mirror, making the VLT the world's largest optical telescope. It will be completed soon after 2000. Photographed in 1997 at the Ansaldo Energia factory near Milan, Italy.