| |
|
FOR ALL AMATEUR
ASTRONOMERS |
|
| |
|
FOR ADVENTURING AMATEUR ASTRONOMERS |
|
| |
|
ATACAMA FOR SHORTER ITINERARIES
|
|
| |
|
CUSTOMIZED FOR CULTURAL ASSOCIATIONS
|
|
| |
|
VERY
LARGE TELESCOPE (VLT) |
|
| |
|
ATACAMA
LARGE MILLIMETER ARRAY (ALMA) |
|
|
| |
|
THE TOP 10
SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE OBJECTS |
|
|
|
 |
| |
Foreign Professional
Observatories in Chile |
| |
|
|
|
La Silla is a 2400-m mountain,
bordering the southern extremity of the Atacama
desert in Chile. It is located about 160 Km north
of La Serena. Its geographical coordinates are:
Latitude 29º 15' south & Longitude 70º
44' west. Originally known as Cinchado, the mountain
was renamed |
La Silla (the saddle) after its
shape. It rises quite isolated and remote from
any artificial light and dust sources astronomy's
worst enemies. La Silla was the first ESO observatory
built in Chile. Its history is full of optimism
and disappointments, ups and downs, since its
beginnings in the 50's until the middle of the
70's when the observatory became a reality.
|
|
|
|
The Cosmic Background Imager (CBI)
is a special-purpose radio telescope designed
to study the cosmic microwave background radiation
from the early universe. It is located at an altitude
of 5080 m (16,700 feet) in the Chilean Andes.
The CBI Project is a collaboration between |
| the California Institute of Technology,
the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics,
the University of Chicago, the National Radio Astronomy
Observatory, the Universidad de Chile, and the Universidad
de Concepción. The project has been supported
by funds from the National Science Foundation, the
California Institute of Technology, Maxine and Ronald
Linde, Cecil and Sally Drinkward, Barbara and Stanley
Rawn Jr., the Kavli Institute, and the Canadian
Institute for Advanced Research. |
|
|
|
The Gemini Observatory consists
of twin 8-meter optical/infrared telescopes located
on two of the best sites on our planet for observing
the universe. Together these telescopes can access
the entire sky. The Gemini telescopes have been
integrated with modern networking |
technologies to allow remote operations
from control rooms at the base facilities in Hilo
and La Serena Chile. With the flexibility of “Queue
Scheduling” and remote participation, researchers
anywhere in the Gemini partnership will be assured
the best possible match between observation, instrument
and observing conditions. |
|
|
|
APEX, the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment,
is a collaboration between Max Planck Institut
für Radioastronomie (MPIfR) in collaboration
with Astronomisches Institut Ruhr-Universität
Bochum (AIRUB) at 50%, Onsala Space Observatory
(OSO) at 23%, and the European Southern |
| Observatory (ESO) at 27% to construct
and operate a modified ALMA prototype antenna as
a single dish on the high altitude site of Llano
Chajnantor. The telescope was supplied by VERTEX
Antennentechnik in Duisburg, Germany. Observing
with APEX will allow us to study warm and cold dust
in starforming regions both in our own Milky Way
and in distant galaxies in the young universe. High
frequency spectral lines enable the exploration
of the structure and chemistry of planetary atmospheres,
dying stars, molecular clouds as well as inner regions
of starburst galaxies. We will address issues from
the vast scales of the structure of the Universe
down to the physics and chemistry of comets. |
|
|
|
The Cerro Tololo Inter-American
Observatory is located about 500km north of Santiago,
Chile, about 70km east of La Serena, at an altitude
of 2200 meters. On site are several optical telescopes,
and one radio telescope. CTIO operates the 4-m
Blanco telescope, and will also |
| operate the new 4.1-m SOAR Telescope,
which is on the adjacent Cerro Pachon, next to the
8-m Gemini Telescope. From February 1 2003 through
January 31 2006 the CTIO 1.5-m, 1.3-m and 0.9-m
telescopes are being operated by the SMARTS Consortium.
During 2004 the 1.0-m telescope was added. |
|
|
|
The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope
(LSST) is a proposed ground-based 8.4-meter, 10
square-degree-field telescope that will provide
digital imaging of faint astronomical objects
across the entire sky, night after night. In a
relentless campaign of 15 second exposures, LSST |
| will cover the available sky every
three nights, opening a movie-like window on objects
that change or move on rapid timescales: exploding
supernovae, potentially hazardous near-Earth asteroids,
and distant Kuiper Belt Objects. The superb images
from the LSST will also be used to trace billions
of remote galaxies and measure the distortions in
their shapes produced by lumps of Dark Matter, providing
multiple tests of the mysterious Dark Energy. |
|
|
|
The Atacama Submillimeter Telescope
Experiment (ASTE) is a project to operate a high
precision 10 m submillimeter telescope at a high
altitude site (4860 m) at Atacama desert in Northern
Chile. The major goals of the project are (1)
to explore the southern sky with submillimeter
waves |
| up to 900 GHz, and (2) development
and on-site evaluation of observation techniques
and methods for submillimeter observations. The
project is driven by the National Astronomical Observatory
of Japan (NAOJ) in collaboration with Universidad
de Chile, and Japanese institutes including University
of Tokyo, Nagoya University, Osaka-Prefecture University,
Ibaragi University, and Kobe University. |
|
|
|
The Atacama Cosmology Telescope
(ACT) project aims to observe the microwave sky
in three frequency bands at high angular resolution
and sensitivity over a substantial region of the
sky. The ACT itself is a custom-designed 6-meter
off-axis Gregorian telescope built by AMEC |
| Dynamic Structures. It has no moving
components in its optical path; to change pointing
direction, the entire telescope moves, including
an attached ground screen. ACT is designed to scan
the sky at constant elevation, to minimizing the
varying atmospheric microwave signal from looking
through different amounts of atmosphere. The ACT
collaboration is composed of around 35 faculty-level
investigators from 17 institutions in the US, Canada,
Mexico, Chile, South Africa, and the United Kingdom.
ACT will be located on Cerro Toco in the Atacama
Desert of the Chilean Andes at an alititude of 5100
m. |
|
|
|
The Cornell-Caltech Atacama Telescope
(CCAT) CCAT is a project to build a 25-m single-aperture
telescope above 5000m in the Atacama region of
Chile. The remarkably low water vapour in the
atmosphere will allow extended operation in the
farinfrared windows of the spectrum |
| (200 and 350 microns) accessible from
the ground. Such observations will probe the peak
emission from the cosmic far-IR/submm background
and proto-stellar cores allowing the investigation
of the earliest stages of the formation of galaxies
and stars. With its wide field-of-view the telescope
will study the many phenomena visible in the submm
that extend over several degrees but also contain
significant sub-structure on arcsecond scales. Hence
CCAT is seen as the perfect wide-field complement
that is essential to fully exploit the capabilities
of interferometers, such as ALMA. |
|
|
|
The Magellan Project a collaboration
between the Observatories of the Carnegie Institution
of Washington (OCIW), University of Arizona, Harvard
University, University of Michigan, and Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT) to construct two
6.5 Meter optical telescopes in the |
| southern hemisphere. The telescopes
will be located at Las Campanas Observatory, at
an altitude of 8000 feet in the Chilean Andes, and
operated by OCIW. |
|
|
|
ALMA — the Atacama Large
Millimeter Array — will be a single instrument
composed of 64 high-precision antennas located
on the Chajnantor plain of the Chilean Andes in
the District of San Pedro de Atacama, 5,000 meters
(16,500 feet) above sea level. |
ALMA’s primary function
will be to observe and image with unprecedented
clarity the enigmatic cold regions of the Universe,
which are optically dark, yet shine brightly in
the millimeter portion of the electromagnetic
spectrum.
|
|
|
|
The ESO Very Large Telescope consists
of an array of four 8-meter telescopes which can
work independently or in combined mode. In this
latter mode the VLT provides the total light collecting
power of a 16 meter single telescope. The telescopes
may also be used in |
| interferometric mode providing high
resolution imaging. The useful wavelength range
extends from the near UV up to 25 µm in the
infrared. |
|
|
| |
Chilean Professional
Observatories (links) |
| |
Chilean Amateur Observatories
(links) |
| |
Chilean Universities
that teach astronomy (links) |
|
|
