The VISTA Hemisphere Survey (VHS) is a panoramic Infra-Red survey, which when combined with other large area VISTA Public Surveys (i.e. VIKING, VVV, VMC) will result in coverage of the whole southern celestial hemisphere (∼20,000deg²) to a depth ∼4 magnitudes fainter than 2MASS/DENIS in at least two wavebands J and Ks. In the South Galactic Cap, ∼5000deg² will be imaged deeper, including H band, and will have supplemental deep multi-band grizY imaging data provided by the Dark Energy Survey (DES). The remainder of the high galactic latitude sky will be imaged in YJHKs combined with ugriz wavebands from the VST ATLAS survey. The medium term scientific goals include:

• a huge expansion in our knowledge of;
• the lowest-mass and nearest stars;
• deciphering the merger history our own Galaxy;
• measurement of large-scale structure out to z≅1 and measuring the properties of Dark Energy;
• discovery of the first quasar with z>7.

In addition the survey will provide essential support for the ESA Cornerstone missions; XMM-Newton, Planck, Herschel and GAIA.
For more information see the VHS home page.