A high-tech family portrait

This family portrait was captured by veteran ESO Photo Ambassador Alexandru Tudorică, and shows all of the telescopes residing at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile.

Looming over its relatives, ESO’s 3.6-metre telescope gleams on the far left of the image. Home to the High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) instrument, the 3.6-metre telescope is the world’s foremost ground-based planet hunter. ESO’s New Technology Telescope (NTT) can be seen on an adjoining peak, easily visible as the next-largest family member. The NTT has been a testbed for pioneering technologies — such as active optics — that are now standard features on telescopes around the world, including ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT).

The smaller domes of more ESO-operated, collaborative, and decommissioned telescopes can be seen emerging from the mountain terrain, as can the site’s main access road, which winds up the sun-bathed mountainside towards the site’s various technical and support buildings.