mirror is undersized to avoid edge detectors viewing warm structure outside the edge of the primary; this means the aperture seen by any point in the image plane is 3.7 m. This design requires the camera's vacuum cryostat – which cools the detectors as well as the baffles – to be more than 2 m long, with a front window of 95 cm diameter. A filter wheel just in front of the detectors allows the selection of a particular infrared wavelength range. Over an area corresponding to 1.65° diameter on the sky, the image plane has 16 arrays of infrared detectors, each array with 2048x2048 pixels of 20 μm size, corresponding on average to 0.34" on the sky. The focal length of 12.1 m combines with the baffled aperture of 3.7 m to a focal ratio of 3.26. The arrays are separated by 90% of their width in one direction and by just under 50% their width in the other direction. A single exposure therefore corresponds to a patchy "paw print" on the sky. To fill the gaps and obtain a conventional image at least six shifted paw prints have to be combined into a "tile", which then is 1.5° by 1.0°. The image plane of the camera also has wave front detectors used to control the shape of the primary mirror and the position and tip/tilt of the secondary mirror (active optics). This compensates for flexure and ensures a focused image at all altitudes. The hilltop where VISTA is located was flattened to erect the enclosure building and an auxiliary building. The auxiliary building includes facilities to wash, strip, and coat the primary mirror. The coating can be in aluminium, or normally in protected silver for better infrared performance. The fixed base of the enclosure supports the rotating steel dome. Two sliding doors form the dome slit. Further dome panels can be opened to increase ventilation, and a wind shield can be deployed to close parts of the slit. During the day, the dome is kept at night-time temperature. Operation and data flow On completion, the telescope was handed over to ESO, which has selected six public surveys for VISTA, taking up 75% of the available observing time. Proprietary surveys to occupy the remaining time are proposed to ESO, which will schedule approved proposals for observation. The observations are carried out by operators at the Paranal Observatory, remotely from