Starry starry night

On Saturday night we made our first outing from San Pedro de Atacama, a small 8km bus ride took us out to the edge of the desert, and onto a ranch! Only this ranch was slightly different, instead of animals and crops, the surrounding fields were filled with bright white domes, and the garden infront of the ranch contained 10 telescopes!

When we climbed off the bus we were greeted by loss an eccentric Canadian astronomer. the first part of the night involved an explanation of the night sky, both past and present! Loss pointed out the southern cross, and the amazingly bright Jupiter, and he then proceeded to point out the constellations of the zodiac with an industrial strength laser pointer!

After the mini astronomy and astrology lecture, we moved onto the lawn containing the telescopes, one pointing at Jupiter, on which we could see its moons. One trained closely on the moons surface, and another showing the whole of the moon! The remaining six telescopes where showing a number of star clusters, tarantula nebulous, both of the Magellan nebulous, and the brightest star in the night sky Sirius, this glowed a vibrant blue colour! As a close to the evening a French guy joined us to aid with the taking photos of the moon through one of the telescopes!

Once the outside things where completed, we moved indoors and drank hot chocolate were Loss explained about different projects the site is involved with, one being ELMER the second most expensive science project, behind the LHC at CERN!

Chile fact: the south pole is 23 degrees above the horizon when viewed from chile!