The tracking control system of the VLT Survey Telescope

The VLT survey telescope is the latest telescope installed at European Southern Observatory's Paranal observatory that is considered one of the best sites for optical astronomy for the excellent seeing conditions. The exceptional quality of the site imposes tight requirements for the telescope tracking system that shall perform very well to fully exploit the extreme sharpness of the Chilean sky. We describe the specific solutions adopted for pointing, servo and guiding systems and the results obtained during the commissioning of the telescope. The hardware implementation relies on industry components and the control solutions privilege both the performance and the future maintainability of the system.