The Dark Energy Survey (DES) will observe 5000 sq. deg. of the
southern sky in 5 passbands over the next five years, with the aim to
constrain the Dark Energy equation-of-state parameters $w$ to
$\sim5\%$ and $w_a$ to $\delta w_a\sim 0.3$. The DES utilizes four
cosmological probes: Galaxy clusters, weak gravitational lensing,
baryonic acoustic oscillations, and type Ia supernovae. After
installation and comissioning from February to October 2012, the new
2.2 sq. deg. field-of-view Dark Energy Camera, DES entered a phase of
extended science verification in November 2012 lasting until February
2013, in which $\sim 150$ sq. deg. were observed to the full survey
depth. I will present initial results from this first set of data.
