VERA, or very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) exploration of radio astronomy, is a VLBI system which uses the relative VLBI method. It consists of four 20 m dual beam antennas that measure the coordinates and proper motion of galactic masers with 10-microarcsec level accuracy.

One of the most important missions for the VERA project is to create a 3D map of the galaxy by using these dual beam antennas.

The 20 m dual beam antennas for VERA have a fully steerable dual beam system with a high-precision field rotator to compensate for pointing error which arises due to atmospheric fluctuation caused by observing a galactic maser and a reference source at the same time.

Three of the antennas were installed in March 2001 at Mizusawa, Iriki, and Ogasawara, and the fourth was installed in March 2002 at Ishigaki, Japan. The VERA project is being promoted chiefly by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan.