Unrivalled vistas at La Silla

ESO’s La Silla Observatory, situated in northern Chile, offers the resident telescopes unrivalled views of both the cosmos and the region’s barren, but beautiful landscape. Photographed by Alberto Ghizzi Panizza from the ramp leading to ESO’s New Technology Telescope (NTT), this view captures La Silla under the magnificence of the Milky Way, which unmistakably carves its way across the night sky overhead.

Sitting proudly at the centre of the frame is the ESO 3.6-metre telescope, host of the planet-hunting HARPS instrument. Below sits the small grey and white enclosure (nicknamed the sarcofago, or sarcophagus) of the Télescope à Action Rapide pour les Objets Transitoires (TAROT). To the far right, the silver-sheened back of the decommissioned 15-metre Swedish-ESO Submillimetre Telescope (SEST) can be seen atop an isolated peak, and, finally, to the left of the road in the foreground sits the corrugated paneling and white dome of the Swiss 1.2-metre Leonhard Euler Telescope.

La Silla is located in the southern part of the Atacama Desert, 600 kilometres north of Santiago de Chile and at an altitude of 2400 metres. The site was ESO's first ever observing site, and has been in operation since the 1960s.

Credit:

Alberto Ghizzi Panizza/ESO

About the Image

Id:potw1836a
Type:Photographic
Release date:3 September 2018, 06:00
Size:4912 x 7360 px

About the Object

Name:La Silla
Type:Unspecified : Technology : Observatory
Category:La Silla

Image Formats

Large JPEG
11.5 MB
Screensize JPEG
724.9 KB

Zoomable


Wallpapers

1024x768
313.8 KB
1280x1024
524.5 KB
1600x1200
755.6 KB
1920x1200
884.9 KB
2048x1536
1.2 MB