Daylight view from Cerro Paranal
By Year: 2016 | Chile | ESO Photo Ambassador | Professional Observatories in the World | Southern Hemisphere | VLT
A daylight view in the desert from Paranal summit, where stands the VLT platform. The Atacama Desert is the driest place on Earth. The Very Large Telescope (VLT) is a telescope operated by the ESO – European Southern Observatory on Cerro Paranal in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile. The VLT is the world’s most advanced optical instrument, consisting of four Unit Telescopes with main mirrors of 8.2m diameter, which are generally used separately but can be used together to achieve very high angular resolution. The four separate optical telescopes are known as Antu, Kueyen, Melipal and Yepun, which are all words for astronomical objects in the Mapuche language, with optical elements that can combine them into an astronomical interferometer (VLTI), which is used to resolve small objects. The interferometer is complemented by four movable Auxiliary Telescopes (ATs) of 1.8 m aperture.
Image taken taken in 15/10/2015 from Cerro Paranal, Atacama desert, Chile.
