At present, no automatic observation instrument for atmospheric visibility is available according to visibility definition. To solve this problem, on the basis of the principle of artificial observation visibility and the effective use of CCD digital photography, this paper builds a digital photographic automatic observation system for visibility (DPVS) and develops a new type of automatic observation instrument for atmospheric visibility completely in accordance with visibility definition, which provides an effective solution for the observation of atmospheric visibility. The experimental results show that the system can precisely observe the atmospheric visibility, and the observation error of the proposed system compared to the transmission instrument is about 10% when the visibility is low and about 20% and the visibility is high. All the indices of the new automatic observation instrument meet the requirements of the World Meteorological Organization for the development standard of visibility meters.