Observatories and Telescopes

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These are images of some of the European Southern Observatory telescopes and locations. They include:

• View from above ESO's La Silla observation site in the southern part of the Atacama desert, 600 km north of Santiago de Chile. The site is 2,400 metres above sea level, providing excellent observing conditions.
• The Wide Field Imager at La Silla, Chile. Antennas of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). When completed will spread across the Chajnantor plateau in the Chilean Andes over distances of up to 16 kilometres. ALMA will be more powerful than the sum of its parts, acting like a single giant telescope as large as the whole collection of antennas.
• The stars rotate around the southern celestial pole during a night at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in northern Chile. The dome seen in the image hosts ESO’s 3.6-metre telescope and is home to HARPS (High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher).
• A 4.1-metre diameter primary mirror being installed in VISTA (Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy) in the Paranal observatory, Chile.

More ESO images can be seen at: http://www.eso.org/public/images

URL: http://stem.org.uk/rx5gn

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