Historical Documents

As a service to the greater community, the ESO Library is scanning and making ESO historical documents accessible. For the moment, the following documents have been made available to all users. It is envisioned that more documents will be made available over time. Further electronic publications are accessible from the ESO Libraries Catalog. However, some of these documents are still for internal use only (and are listed as intranet links). If you wish to obtain copies of ESO historical documents that are not accessible from this page or the catalog, please contact the ESO Library for assistance.

Basic Texts: Convention and Protocols
European Southern Observatory
October 2012

PDF (7.1 MB), PDF small (1.4 MB)
VLT Blue Book
Proposal for the Construction of the 16-m Very Large Telescope
European Southern Observatory
1987

PDF (19.9 MB)
VLT White Book
European Southern Observatory
1998

PDF (15.4 MB)

ESO's Early History
by Adriaan Blaauw
European Southern Observatory
1991

PDF (41.8 MB)
High Resolution PDF (151.3 MB)
Exploring the Southern Sky
by Svend Laustsen, Claus Madsen and Richard M. West
Springer Verlag 1987
scanned with permission from the publisher

PDF (46.4 MB)