De un camino de tierra al observatorio líder mundial
ESO cumple cincuenta años, y para celebrar este importante aniversario, les mostramos retazos de nuestra historia. Una vez al mes, durante el año 2012, un especial “Ayer y hoy” de la Imagen de la Semana, comparará dos imágenes para mostrar cómo han cambiado las cosas a lo largo de las últimas décadas en los observatorios de La Silla y Paranal, en las oficinas de ESO en Santiago de Chile, y en la Sede Central en Garching (Munich, Alemania).
Estas imágenes muestran la entrada del Observatorio Paranal, en el norte de Chile, mirando hacia la cima de Cerro Paranal, tal y como se veía en 1987 en comparación con una imagen actual.
La región de Cerro Paranal fue estudiada en 1983 como posible emplazamiento del que sería el Very Large Telescope (VLT) por un equipo que incluía al Director General de ESO en aquel momento, Lodewijk Woltjer (para más información, ver The Messenger, No. 64, pp 5–8). En 1987, se construyó un camino de tierra hacia la cima y se estableció una base permanente para estudiar sus condiciones. La imagen histórica muestra lo que podía verse por aquel entonces.
Los resultados de estos estudios fueron muy buenos, — las condiciones eran incluso mejores que las del Observatorio La Silla, de ESO, o los demás emplazamientos tenidos en consideración. Esto hizo que se decidiera elegir Paranal para construir el VLT, algo que el Consejo de ESO dio a conocer en diciembre de 1990 (ver eso9015).
Paranal ha cambiado mucho en estos 25 años, desde que se tomara esta imagen histórica. La cima de la montaña se niveló y se sustituyó el camino por una carretera y, por supuesto, se construyeron los telescopios que hoy forman el observatorio. En la imagen actual puede verse el observatorio completo y totalmente operativo. En la cima ahora se encuentran los cuatro telescopios unitarios VLT de 8,2 metros, junto con los cuatro telescopios auxiliares de menor tamaño (1,8 metros) utilizados para hacer interferometría, y el telescopio de sondeo de 2,6 metros VLT Survey Telescope. En la entrada se han construido numerosos edificios para crear el campamento base del observatorio. Para una visión desde el lado opuesto, mirando hacia abajo, desde la cima hacia el campamento base, ver esta Imagen de la Semana anterior: potw1230.
Enlaces
- La imagen histórica
- La imagen actual
- Comparación de la imagen histórica y la imagen actual
Crédito
ESO
Sobre la Comparación de la Imagen
| Identificador: | potw1232a |
| Fecha de publicación: | 6 de Agosto de 2012 a las 10:00 |
Imágenes
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