The survey

VISIONS observed all star-forming clouds within 500 pc of Earth, about 1600 light-years, that are accessible from the southern hemisphere. Between 2017 and 2022, the survey returned to each region several times per year to follow the motions of the youngest stars.

Observing strategy

The survey includes three separate observing categories.

Wide

Multi-epoch observations of the nearby star-forming regions to derive the proper motions of young stars.

Deep

Deep observations of the high column-density regions for dust mapping and the characterization of young stellar objects.

Control

Observations of extinction-free control fields for statistical comparison.

Sky coverage

The atlas covers about 550 square degrees, distributed over six nearby stellar nurseries.

Map of the star-forming regions covered by VISIONS on the southern sky — The star-forming regions covered by VISIONS.

Ophiuchus
Pipe Nebula
Lupus
Corona Australis
Chamaeleon-Musca
Orion

Science goals

We designed the survey to study the interstellar medium and the formation of stars, clusters, and planetary systems.

3D distribution of the star-forming interstellar medium and the Milky Way context
Molecular cloud formation and evolution
A reliable look into the CMF/IMF relation and the origin of the IMF
Resolved Kennicutt-Schmidt relation, down to 0.1 pc
Proper motions of embedded objects and young stars
YSO identification, characterization, and a precise evolutionary sequence
Dust properties and reddening law variations
Cluster formation and evolution
The IMF down to the brown-dwarf and planet regime
Wide binaries
Jets and outflows
Effects of young stars on protoplanetary disks

VISIONS among the VISTA surveys

Sky chart showing the overlap of VISIONS with previous VISTA public surveys, and the observability diagram for Paranal — Overlap between VISIONS and previous VISTA public surveys (top), and the observability diagram for Paranal (bottom).

The VISTA telescope enclosure at Paranal Observatory under a starry sky — The VISTA telescope at ESO’s Paranal Observatory. Credit: ESO

The telescope

553 hours with VISTA

VISIONS is a public survey of the European Southern Observatory, carried out with the 4.1 m Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA) at Paranal Observatory in Chile. In total, ESO granted 553 hours of observing time with the VIRCAM camera, distributed over the observing periods P99 to P108 (2017 to 2022).

The survey design builds on VISION, the Vienna survey in Orion, which mapped the Orion A cloud with VISTA and served as the pilot study for the atlas (Meingast et al. 2016).

Survey proposal (PDF, 7 MB) Pilot study on ADS