The Galactic Bulge: Prospects for the VLT

Abstract.

The central bulge of the Galaxy is 100 times closer than the nearest extragalactic bulge, that of M31. Until the era of 100m telescopes arrives, the Milky Way bulge will remain the best venue for the detailed study of bulge populations. The VLT will have two significant advantages in this venture. First, the Southern Hemisphere location is ideal for observations of bulge fields, which are at $\delta \approx -30^\circ$. The second advantage is the VLT itself, which will have the UVES echelle that will ultimately be fiber fed. The combination of the wide field imaging of the VLT survey telescope with multi-object high resolution spectroscopy on UT2 will produce the largest and best data sets yet seen in this subject area.