The Milky Way above La Silla (Forwarded)

From: Andrew Yee (ayee_at_nova.astro.utoronto.ca)
Date: 09/29/04 

Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 11:19:16 -0400

ESO Education and Public Relations Dept.

--------------------------------------------------------------
Text with all links and the photos are available on the ESO Website at URL:

http://www.eso.org/outreach/press-rel/pr-2004/phot-27-04.html
--------------------------------------------------------------

For immediate release: 14 September 2004

ESO Press Photo 27/04

The Milky Way above La Silla

   ESO PR Photo 27/04

   The Milky Way above La Silla (Nico Housen)

Anybody who visits a high-altitude astronomical observatory
at this time of the year will be impressed by the beauty of
the Milky Way band that stretches across the sky. Compared
to the poor views from cities and other human conglomerations,
the dark and bright nebulae come into view together with an
astonishing palette of clear stellar colours.

This view above the ESO La Silla Observatory in the
southernmost part of the Atacama desert was obtained some
evenings ago by ESO Software Engineer Nico Housen. Normally
stationed at the Paranal Observatory, he seized the
opportunity of a visit to ESO's other observatory site to
produce this amazing vista of the early evening scenery.

To the left is the decommisioned 15-metre dish of the Swedish-
ESO Submillimetre Telescope (SEST), and on the right in the
background is the dome of the ESO 3.6-metre telescope, at the
highest point of the mountain. The southern Milky Way is seen
along the right border of the SEST and above the 3.6 metre
telescope. There is an upside-down reflection of the sky and
the horizon behind the photographer in the highly polished
antenna dish of the SEST. Besides the reflection of the
horizon (the darker part in the top of the dish) and the
Milky Way (which runs as a thin cloud from the bottom of the
dish up to the horizon) there is also a yellow area of light
to the right. This is the reflection of the city lights of
the city of La Serena, about 100 km away and too faint to
disturb observations of celestial objects high above La Silla.

The 3.6-m telescope began operations in 1976 and was ESO's
largest telescope until the advent of the VLT at Paranal.
Never endowed with a fancy name like the VLT Unit telescopes,
the "3.6-m" houses several state-of-the-art astronomical
instruments, including the ultra-precise HARPS facility that
is used to hunt for exoplanets, cf. ESO PR 22/04.

The SEST was for a long time the only instrument of its kind
in the southern hemisphere. With it, ESO gained invaluable
experience in ground-based non-optical observations, paving
the way for the ALMA project.

The Atacama Large Millimetre Array (ALMA) [1] is one of the
largest ground-based astronomy projects of the next decade
after the ESO VLT. Its construction started last year and
will be completed by 2011. When ready, it will be the largest
and most sensitive astronomical observatory of its kind,
comprisiing some sixty-four 12-m antennas located on a 10-km
wide plateau at a 5000-m elevation in the Atacama Desert.
More information on ALMA can be found on ESO PR 29/03 or on
the ESO ALMA web page.

ESO PR Photo 27/04 may be reproduced if Nico Housen and the
European Southern Observatory are mentioned as source.

Technical information: The photo was obtained on September 4,
2004 at about 20:45 hrs local time (00:45 hrs UT) with a
Nikon D100 digital camera with a Sigma 20mm/f1.8 lens. The
exposure time was about 40 sec at 1600 ASA.

Note

[1] The Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) is an
international astronomy facility. ALMA is an equal partnership
between Europe and North America, in cooperation with the
Republic of Chile, and is funded in North America by the U.S.
National Science Foundation (NSF) in cooperation with the
National Research Council of Canada (NRC), and in Europe by
the European Southern Observatory (ESO) and Spain. ALMA
construction and operations are led on behalf of North America
by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), which is
managed by Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI), and on behalf
of Europe by ESO.

--------------------------------------------------------------
         (c) ESO Education & Public Relations Department
     Karl-Schwarzschild-Strasse 2, D-85748 Garching, Germany
--------------------------------------------------------------

Relevant Pages