La Silla Observatory
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La Silla Observatory is an
astronomical Astronomy is a natural science that studies celestial objects and the phenomena that occur in the cosmos. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and their overall evolution. Objects of interest include ...
observatory An observatory is a location used for observing terrestrial, marine, or celestial events. Astronomy, climatology/meteorology, geophysics, oceanography and volcanology are examples of disciplines for which observatories have been constructed. Th ...
in
Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...
with three telescopes built and operated by the
European Southern Observatory The European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere, commonly referred to as the European Southern Observatory (ESO), is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental research organisation made up of 16 m ...
(ESO). Several other telescopes are also located at the site and are partly maintained by ESO. The observatory is one of the largest in the Southern Hemisphere and was the first in Chile to be used by ESO. The La Silla telescopes and instruments are located 150 km northeast of La Serena, on the outskirts of the
Atacama Desert The Atacama Desert () is a desert plateau located on the Pacific Ocean, Pacific coast of South America, in the north of Chile. Stretching over a strip of land west of the Andes Mountains, it covers an area of , which increases to if the barre ...
, one of the driest and most remote areas in the world. Like other observatories in this region, La Silla is far from sources of
light pollution Light pollution is the presence of any unwanted, inappropriate, or excessive artificial Visible spectrum, lighting. In a descriptive sense, the term ''light pollution'' refers to the effects of any poorly implemented lighting sources, during the ...
and, like the
Paranal Observatory Paranal Observatory is an astronomical observatory operated by the European Southern Observatory (ESO). It is located in the Atacama Desert of Northern Chile on Cerro Paranal at altitude, south of Antofagasta. By total light-collecting area, ...
—home to the
Very Large Telescope The Very Large Telescope (VLT) is an astronomical facility operated since 1998 by the European Southern Observatory, located on Cerro Paranal in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile. It consists of four individual telescopes, each equipped with ...
—it has some of the darkest night skies on Earth.


History

Following the decision in 1963 to approve Chile as the site for the ESO observatory, scouting parties were sent to various locations to assess their suitability. The site that was decided upon was La Silla in the southern part of the
Atacama Desert The Atacama Desert () is a desert plateau located on the Pacific Ocean, Pacific coast of South America, in the north of Chile. Stretching over a strip of land west of the Andes Mountains, it covers an area of , which increases to if the barre ...
, 600 km north of Santiago de Chile and at an altitude of 2400 metres. Besides being government property, it had the added benefits of being in a dry, flat and easily accessible area, yet isolated and remote from any artificial light and dust sources. Originally named the Cinchado, it was renamed La Silla ("the saddle" in Spanish) after its saddle-like shape. On October 30, 1964, the contracts were signed and an area of was purchased the following year. During 1965, temporary facilities were erected with living quarters, a workshop and storage area. The dedication ceremony of the road to the summit took place in March 1966, two months after completion of the road. On 25 March 1969, the ESO site at La Silla was finally formally inaugurated by President
Eduardo Frei Montalva Eduardo Nicanor Frei Montalva (; 16 January 1911 – 22 January 1982) was a Chileans, Chilean political leader. In his long political career, he was Minister of Public Works, president of his Christian Democratic Party (Chile), Christia ...
. With a permanent base of dormitories, workshops, hotels and several functioning telescopes, the observatory was fully operational. The ESO 1.5-metre and ESO 1-metre telescopes had been erected in the late 1960s, and were joined in 1968 by the Gran Prismo Objectif telescope, which had previously been used in South Africa. These three telescopes can be seen in this order from right to left in the background of the image on the left from June 1968. By 1976, the largest telescope planned, the , started operations. It was subsequently to have a 1.4m CAT (Coudé Auxiliary Telescope) attached. In 1984, the 2.2m telescope began operations, while in March 1989, the 3.5 m New Technology Telescope (NTT) saw first light. The program reached its apex with the installation of the SEST in 1987 (Swedish ESO Submillimetre Telescope), the only large submillimetre telescope in the southern hemisphere, which was a combined project between ESO and the Swedish Natural Science Research Council. Around the end of the century some of the original telescopes were closed: the 1m Schmidt closed in 1998 and the 1.5m in 2002, while new equipment owned by various foreign observatories was introduced. A 1-metre telescope owned by Marseille Observatory opened in 1998, followed by a 1.2-metre telescope from Geneva Observatory in 2000.


Telescopes

ESO operates three major optical and near infrared telescopes at the La Silla site: the New Technology Telescope (NTT), the 3.6-m ESO Telescope, and the 2.2-m Max-Planck-ESO Telescope (MPG/ESO Telescope). In addition La Silla hosts several other national and project telescopes such as the ESO 1-metre Schmidt Telescope, the 1.54-m Danish Telescope, the 1.2-m Leonhard Euler Telescope, the Rapid Eye Mount telescope, TRAPPIST and TAROT. These telescopes are not operated by ESO and hence do not fall under the responsibility of La Silla Science Operations.


ESO 3.6 m Telescope

This 3.6 m Cassegrain telescope started operations in 1976 and has been constantly upgraded since, including the installation of a new secondary mirror that has kept the telescope in its place as one of the most efficient and productive engines of astronomical research. The telescope hosts
HARPS The High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) is a high-precision Echelle grating, echelle planet-finding spectrograph installed in 2002 on the ESO 3.6 m Telescope, ESO's 3.6m telescope at La Silla Observatory in Chile. The First l ...
, the High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher, the world's foremost exoplanet hunter. HARPS is a spectrograph with unrivalled precision and is the most successful finder of low-mass exoplanets to date. Since 2022, the 3.6 m telescope has also hosted NIRPS, the Near Infra Red Planet Searcher.


New Technology Telescope

The ESO New Technology Telescope (NTT) is an Alt-Az, 3.58-metre Richey-Chretien telescope which pioneered the use of active optics. The telescope and its enclosure had a revolutionary design for optimal image quality. NTT saw first light in March 1989. The telescope chamber is ventilated by a system of flaps which optimize the air flow across the NTT optimizing the dome and mirror seeing. To prevent heat input to the building, all motors in the telescope are water cooled and all the electronics boxes are insulated and cooled. The primary mirror of the NTT is actively controlled to preserve its figure at all telescope positions. The secondary mirror position is also actively controlled in three directions. The optimized airflow, the thermal controls, and the active optics give the excellent image quality of the NTT. The NTT has active instead of
adaptive optics Adaptive optics (AO) is a technique of precisely deforming a mirror in order to compensate for light distortion. It is used in Astronomy, astronomical telescopes and laser communication systems to remove the effects of Astronomical seeing, atmo ...
: it corrects the defects and deformation of the telescope and mirror, but does not correct the turbulence; it ensures that the optics is always in perfect shape. Together with the thermal control, it allows the NTT to reach the ambient seeing, but it does not improve it.


MPG/ESO 2.2 m Telescope

The 2.2-metre telescope has been in operation at La Silla since early 1984, and is on indefinite loan to ESO from the
Max Planck Society The Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science (; abbreviated MPG) is a formally independent non-governmental and non-profit association of German research institutes. Founded in 1911 as the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, it was renamed to the M ...
( or MPG). Telescope time is shared between MPG and ESO observing programmes, while the operation and maintenance of the telescope are ESO's responsibility. However, due to a new agreement between the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA) and ESO, the instrument is operated by MPG until the end of September 2016. The telescope hosts three instruments: the 67-million pixel Wide Field Imager with a field of view as large as the full Moon, which has taken many amazing images of celestial objects; GROND, the Gamma-Ray Burst Optical/Near-Infrared Detector, which chases the afterglows of the most powerful explosions in the Universe, known as
gamma-ray burst In gamma-ray astronomy, gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are extremely energetic events occurring in distant Galaxy, galaxies which represent the brightest and most powerful class of explosion in the universe. These extreme Electromagnetic radiation, ele ...
s; and the high-resolution spectrograph, FEROS, used to make detailed studies of stars. MPG's 2.2-metre telescope in La Silla also has a twin brother located at the Calar Alto Observatory in southern Spain.


Other telescopes

La Silla also hosts several national and project telescopes not operated by ESO. Among them are the Swiss Euler Telescope, the Danish National Telescope and the REM, TRAPPIST and TAROT telescopes.


ESO Schmidt telescope

: The ESO 1-metre Schmidt telescope, is a Schmidt telescope designed to provide a wide
field of view The field of view (FOV) is the angle, angular extent of the observable world that is visual perception, seen at any given moment. In the case of optical instruments or sensors, it is a solid angle through which a detector is sensitive to elec ...
of the sky—equivalent to about the area of 64 full Moons. Commissioned in 1971, it was one of the first telescopes operational at La Silla and was still using
photographic plate Photographic plates preceded film as the primary medium for capturing images in photography. These plates, made of metal or glass and coated with a light-sensitive emulsion, were integral to early photographic processes such as heliography, d ...
s at the time. These plates later confirmed the rediscovery of long-lost asteroids such as 1179 Mally and 843 Nicolaia. : In 2009, the telescope was dedicated to the LaSilla–Quest Variability Survey, by
Yale Yale University is a private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, and one of the nine colonial colleges ch ...
's Department of Astronomy, and has since been used for astronomical surveys focused on the discovery of new Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs), periodic
variable star A variable star is a star whose brightness as seen from Earth (its apparent magnitude) changes systematically with time. This variation may be caused by a change in emitted light or by something partly blocking the light, so variable stars are ...
s, and
supernova A supernova (: supernovae or supernovas) is a powerful and luminous explosion of a star. A supernova occurs during the last stellar evolution, evolutionary stages of a massive star, or when a white dwarf is triggered into runaway nuclear fusion ...
s. : Yales's 160-megapixel QUEST camera consists of a mosaic of 112 CCDs and covers about sixteen square degrees. This enables the remotely controlled project telescope to observe about a third of the night sky every four days. The La Silla–QUEST survey with the Schmidt telescope corresponds to the Palomar Distant Solar System Survey that was carried out in the Northern Hemisphere and led to the discovery of several
trans-Neptunian objects A trans-Neptunian object (TNO), also written transneptunian object, is any minor planet in the Solar System that orbits the Sun at a greater average distance than Neptune, which has an orbital semi-major axis of 30.1 astronomical units (AU). T ...
and
centaurs A centaur ( ; ; ), occasionally hippocentaur, also called Ixionidae (), is a creature from Greek mythology with the upper body of a human and the lower body and legs of a horse that was said to live in the mountains of Thessaly. In one version o ...
. In 1996, the telescope imaged 7968 Elst–Pizarro with a previously unseen cometary tail, which spawned a new class of celestial bodies called
main-belt comet Active asteroids are Small Solar System body, small Solar System bodies that have asteroid-like orbits but show comet-like visual characteristics. That is, they show a Coma (cometary), coma, comet tail, tail, or other visual evidence of mass-loss ...
.


Euler telescope

: The Euler Telescope is a 1.2-metre telescope built and operated by the Geneva Observatory in Switzerland. It uses the ''CORALIE'' spectrograph to conduct high-precision radial velocity measurements, also known as the wobble method, primarily in the search for large
extrasolar planet An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet outside the Solar System. The first confirmed detection of an exoplanet was in 1992 around a pulsar, and the first detection around a main-sequence star was in 1995. A different planet, first detect ...
s in the southern celestial hemisphere. Its first discovery was a planet orbiting Gliese 86. Other observing programmes focus on
variable star A variable star is a star whose brightness as seen from Earth (its apparent magnitude) changes systematically with time. This variation may be caused by a change in emitted light or by something partly blocking the light, so variable stars are ...
s,
asteroseismology Asteroseismology is the study of oscillations in stars. Stars have many Resonance, resonant modes and frequencies, and the path of sound waves passing through a star depends on the local speed of sound, which in turn depends on local temperature a ...
, gamma-ray bursts, monitoring active galactic nuclei and
gravitational lens A gravitational lens is matter, such as a galaxy cluster, cluster of galaxies or a point particle, that bends light from a distant source as it travels toward an observer. The amount of gravitational lensing is described by Albert Einstein's Ge ...
es.


MASCARA

: MASCARA, the ''Multi-site all-sky camera'' station saw first light in July 2017. Built and operated by the Dutch
Leiden University Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; ) is a Public university, public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. Established in 1575 by William the Silent, William, Prince of Orange as a Protestantism, Protestant institution, it holds the d ...
, the instrument is dedicated to search for exoplanets. MASCARA has a sibling station for the Northern hemisphere at the
Roque de los Muchachos Observatory Roque de los Muchachos Observatory (, ORM) is an astronomical observatory located in the municipality of Garafía on the island of La Palma in the Canary Islands, Spain. The observatory site is operated by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Can ...
in Spain.


REM telescope

: The Rapid Eye Mount telescope (REM) is a small rapid-reaction automatic telescope with a primary mirror. The telescope, in an
altazimuth mount An altazimuth mount or alt-azimuth mount is a simple two- axis mount for supporting and rotating an instrument about two perpendicular axes – one vertical and the other horizontal. Rotation about the vertical axis varies the azimuth (compass b ...
, began operation in October 2002. The primary purpose of the telescope is to follow the afterglow of the GRBs detected by the
Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Mission Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, previously called the Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Explorer, is a NASA three-telescope space observatory for studying gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and monitoring the afterglow in X-ray, and UV/visible light at the location o ...
satellite.


TAROT

: The Quick-action telescope for transient objects,
TAROT Tarot (, first known as ''trionfi (cards), trionfi'' and later as ''tarocchi'' or ''tarocks'') is a set of playing cards used in tarot games and in fortune-telling or divination. From at least the mid-15th century, the tarot was used to play t ...
() is a very fast-moving optical robotic telescope able to observe a gamma-ray burst from its beginning. Satellites detecting GRBs send signals to TAROT, which can provide a sub-arc second position to the astronomical community. Data from the TAROT telescope is also useful in studying the evolution of GRBs, the physics of a fireball and its surrounding material. It is operated from the Haute-Provence Observatory in France.


Danish 1.54m Telescope

: The 1.54-metre Danish National Telescope was built by Grubb Parsons and has been in use at La Silla since 1979. The telescope has an off-axis mount, and the optics are a Ritchey-Chrétien design. The telescope's mount and the limited space inside the dome induce significant pointing restrictions.


TRAPPIST

: The Belgian robotic
TRAPPIST The Trappists, officially known as the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance (, abbreviated as OCSO) and originally named the Order of Reformed Cistercians of Our Lady of La Trappe, are a Religious order (Catholic), Catholic religious o ...
, the ''TRAnsiting Planets and PlanetesImals Small Telescope–South'', is a joint venture between the
University of Liège The University of Liège (), or ULiège, is a major public university of the French Community of Belgium founded in 1817 and based in Liège, Wallonia, Belgium. Its official language is French (language), French. History The university was foun ...
and Geneva Observatory. The 0.60-metre telescope is specialized in comets and
exoplanets An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet outside the Solar System. The first confirmed detection of an exoplanet was in 1992 around a pulsar, and the first detection around a main-sequence star was in 1995. A different planet, first detec ...
, and was one of the few telescopes that observed a
stellar occultation Stellar means anything related to one or more stars (''stella''). The term may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Stellar (magazine), ''Stellar'' (magazine), an Irish lifestyle and fashion magazine * Stellar Loussier, a character fro ...
of the dwarf planet Eris, revealing that it may be smaller than
Pluto Pluto (minor-planet designation: 134340 Pluto) is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of Trans-Neptunian object, bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object to directly orbit the Su ...
. It has recently gained fame following the discovery and categorisation of TRAPPIST-1, a planet system of seven near-earth like planets orbiting an ultra-cool dwarf star.


Former telescopes

The following telescopes have now been decommissioned: * Bochum 0.61-metre Telescope (National telescope) * Coudé Auxiliary 1.47-m Telescope (CAT), adjacent to ESO 3.6 Telescope * Danish 0.5-metre Telescope (National telescope) * Dutch 0.9-metre Telescope (National telescope) * Grand Prism Objectif (GPO) Telescope * ESO 0.5-metre telescope (now at the Observatorio UC in Santiago, Chile) * ESO 1-metre telescope (1966–1994), used for DENIS 1996–2001 * ESO 1.52-metre telescope * Marly 1-metre Telescope * Marseille 0.4-metre Telescope (National telescope) * Swedish-ESO Submillimetre Telescope (SEST), 15-metre * Swiss T70 telescope (1980–1998, now home of
TRAPPIST The Trappists, officially known as the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance (, abbreviated as OCSO) and originally named the Order of Reformed Cistercians of Our Lady of La Trappe, are a Religious order (Catholic), Catholic religious o ...
) * Swiss 0.4-metre telescope (1975–1980, replaced by T70) The Swiss T70 telescope was a 70 cm aperture telescope for
photometry Photometry can refer to: * Photometry (optics), the science of measurement of visible light in terms of its perceived brightness to human vision * Photometry (astronomy), the measurement of the flux or intensity of an astronomical object's electr ...
that had a first light in 1980. It was retired in 1998, when the Euler Telescope was commissioned. The Swiss T70 was a Cassegrain reflector design mounted on an Equatorial fork mount. It was equipped with a P7 Photometer, and replaced the Swiss 0.4-metre telescope, which was in use from November 1975 until March 1980. As with the Euler Telescope, the Swiss T70 and 0.4-metre telescopes were operated by the Geneva Observatory.


Scientific discoveries

About 300 scientific papers based on observations taken at La Silla are published each year. The HARPS spectrograph has found a large number of low-mass extrasolar planets. It detected the planets within the Gliese 581 planetary system, which contains what may be the first known rocky planet in a
habitable zone In astronomy and astrobiology, the habitable zone (HZ), or more precisely the circumstellar habitable zone (CHZ), is the range of orbits around a star within which a planetary surface can support liquid water given sufficient atmospheric pressu ...
, outside the Solar System. Several telescopes at La Silla played a crucial role in linking
gamma-ray burst In gamma-ray astronomy, gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are extremely energetic events occurring in distant Galaxy, galaxies which represent the brightest and most powerful class of explosion in the universe. These extreme Electromagnetic radiation, ele ...
s—the most energetic explosions in the Universe since the Big Bang—with the explosions of massive stars. Since 1987, the ESO La Silla Observatory has also played an important role in the study and follow-up of the nearest recent supernova, SN 1987A.


Signs of a pre-Hispanic culture

Hundreds of rock engravings, also called petroglyphs, can be found all around La Silla. These are attributed to the 300 to 700 CE El Molle culture. The El Molle culture have their origin as
hunter-gatherers A hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living in a community, or according to an ancestrally derived lifestyle, in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local naturally occurring sources, especially w ...
that developed a new way of life based on
horticulture Horticulture (from ) is the art and science of growing fruits, vegetables, flowers, trees, shrubs and ornamental plants. Horticulture is commonly associated with the more professional and technical aspects of plant cultivation on a smaller and mo ...
and village life. They are known for their
pottery Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other raw materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. The place where such wares are made by a ''potter'' is al ...
and body ornaments, such as necklaces and the tembetás. There are three types of petroglyph designs at La Silla: human and animal figures, abstract geometrical designs and purely ornamental ensembles. Beside the petroglyphs there exists also a stone circle near La Silla, which is suggested as an astronomical tool. Three rocks aligned during the El Molle culture with Alpha Carinae, Beta Carinae and
Alpha Centauri Alpha Centauri (, α Cen, or Alpha Cen) is a star system in the southern constellation of Centaurus (constellation), Centaurus. It consists of three stars: Rigil Kentaurus (), Toliman (), and Proxima Centauri (). Proxima Centauri ...
or Beta Centauri. This alignment occurred during late April and during May and could signal the beginning of the cold season. Farmers could have used this tool to determine when to move their herds, mostly
camelidae Camelids are members of the biological family Camelidae, the only currently living family in the suborder Tylopoda. The seven extant members of this group are: dromedary camels, Bactrian camels, wild Bactrian camels, llamas, alpacas, vicuñas ...
, into their villages. There are signs of illicit excavations at La Silla since the 1990s and in 2017 some
vandalism Vandalism is the action involving deliberate destruction of or damage to public or private property. The term includes property damage, such as graffiti and defacement directed towards any property without permission of the owner. The t ...
was discovered. Another ESO site with archaeological testimonies in its vicinity is the ALMA site.


Timelapse videos


Gallery

File:Starry La Silla Observatory.jpg, Stars rotate around the southern celestial pole during a night at La Silla File:Three Planets Dance Over La Silla.jpg,
Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the List of Solar System objects by size, largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a Jupiter mass, mass more than 2.5 times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined a ...
(top),
Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is often called Earth's "twin" or "sister" planet for having almost the same size and mass, and the closest orbit to Earth's. While both are rocky planets, Venus has an atmosphere much thicker ...
(left), and Mercury (right) nearly align themselves in the sky. File:La Silla from 3,6m.jpg, Ramps lead to the NTT. The Euler Telescope is to the right. (Seen from the ESO 3.6 Telescope.) File:Morning Light Over La Silla.jpg, Morning Light Over La Silla. File:Telescope Domes Clustered at La Silla.jpg, Telescope Domes clustered at La Silla File:Observatoire de LaSilla depuis la route de Las Campanas.jpg, La Silla Observatory at sunset File:Cloud City in a Galaxy Far, Far Away.jpg, La Silla Observatory blanketed in snow as the Sun sets. File:Observatorio la silla 2.JPG, La Silla Observatory during daytime File:La Silla Trailer.webm, Observatory trailer File:Venus, Jupiter and the Art of Patience - potw2005a.jpg, This remarkable photo shows the ESO La Silla observatory in the foreground with the planets Venus and Jupiter low in the sky and the Milky Way drifting behind them. File:Shooting_Star_over_La_Silla.jpg, This picture shows two of the three new ExTrA telescopes hosted at ESO's La Silla Observatory in Chile. Situated over 2000 meters above sea level, these telescopes scour the skies for Earth-sized worlds around M class stars, which are stars smaller than the Sun.
File:A 360 degree panorama of a unique cloudscape over La Silla.jpg, Panorama of La Silla at sunset with the ESO 3.6 m Telescope in the center and the decommissioned Swedish radio telescope in the foreground


See also

*
List of astronomical observatories This is a partial list of astronomical observatories ordered by name, along with initial dates of operation (where an accurate date is available) and location. The list also includes a final year of operation for many observatories that are no lon ...
* List of highest astronomical observatories * Other observatories in Chile: **
Llano de Chajnantor Observatory Llano de Chajnantor Observatory is the name for a group of astronomy, astronomical observatory, observatories located at an altitude of over 4,800 m (15,700 ft) in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile. The site is in the Antofagasta Reg ...
***
Atacama Large Millimeter Array The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) is an astronomical interferometer of 66 radio telescopes in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile, which observe electromagnetic radiation at millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths. The ar ...
**
Paranal Observatory Paranal Observatory is an astronomical observatory operated by the European Southern Observatory (ESO). It is located in the Atacama Desert of Northern Chile on Cerro Paranal at altitude, south of Antofagasta. By total light-collecting area, ...
***
Very Large Telescope The Very Large Telescope (VLT) is an astronomical facility operated since 1998 by the European Southern Observatory, located on Cerro Paranal in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile. It consists of four individual telescopes, each equipped with ...
** Cerro Armazones Observatory *** Extremely Large Telescope ** Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory * Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory *
Llano de Chajnantor Observatory Llano de Chajnantor Observatory is the name for a group of astronomy, astronomical observatory, observatories located at an altitude of over 4,800 m (15,700 ft) in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile. The site is in the Antofagasta Reg ...


References


External links


ESO - La Silla Paranal Observatory


*

{{Authority control 1964 establishments in Chile Articles containing video clips Astronomical observatories in Chile Atacama Desert Buildings and structures in Coquimbo Region European Southern Observatory Minor-planet discovering observatories