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X6WR+82 Pajonales, San Pedro de Atacama, Chile

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https://goo.gl/maps/3qEabkqRKHyuVykw7
APEX stands for Atacama Pathfinder Experiment. This is a world-class millimetre & sub-millimetre observatory located at the so-called Chajnantor plateau, on the Chilean Andes. This is an ideal place with outstanding weather conditions for this type of observations.

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Welcome to the APEX web site. You will find here all about our project and the amazing 12-m radio telescope that we operate in northern Chile. APEX is located in a privileged location, on the "Llano de Chajnantor", at 5100 m. above the sea level. At such high altitude, the dry atmosphere of the Atacama desert opens up a unique window to observe the millimetre and sub-millimetre light. The versatile set of state-of-the-art instrumentation onboard APEX is at the service of researchers around the world, to learn more about the cold and the dusty Universe.

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Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) - Revealing the sub-mm Universe...

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Welcome to the APEX web site. You will find here all about our project and the amazing 12-m radio telescope that we operate in northern Chile. APEX is located in a privileged location, on the "Llano de Chajnantor", at 5100 m. above the sea level.

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ALMA Radio Telescope, San Pedro de Atacama

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ALMA Radio Telescope, San Pedro de Atacama

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ALMA Radio Telescope, San Pedro de Atacama

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https://goo.gl/maps/AbsjKMztDsLmZos67
The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), an international astronomy facility, is a partnership of the European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere (ESO), the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS) of Japan in cooperation with the Republic of Chile.

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The operation of the ALMA observatory in Chile contributes to the development of astronomy in the country by granting guaranteed observing time to Chilean astronomers, encouraging the training of specialized human resources, promoting innovations in engineering and software development, helping to improve the country's telecommunications infrastructure, and supporting the social and economic development of local and regional communities.

ALMA's relationship with the Chilean community and government has been excellent both at the national and regional levels, through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other authorities. Collaboration is constant at the ministerial level as well as with regional authorities through the Intendente -the equivalent of a regional governor- and local authorities, through the mayor and town council of San Pedro de Atacama and the Toconao indigenous community.

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The operation of the ALMA observatory in Chile contributes to the development of astronomy in the country by granting guaranteed observing time to Chilean astronomers, encouraging the training of specialized human resources, promoting innovations in engineering and software development, helping to improve the country's telecommunications infrastructure, and supporting the social and economic development of local...

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Observatorio Paranal - Taltal, Antofagasta

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Observatorio Paranal - Taltal, Antofagasta

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Observatorio Paranal - Taltal, Antofagasta

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https://goo.gl/maps/t599Wi4oNCpDCbYE7
At 2635 metres above sea level in the Atacama Desert of Chile, ESO’s Paranal Observatory is one of the very best astronomical observing sites in the world and is the flagship facility for European ground-based astronomy. It hosts several world-class telescopes; among them are the Very Large Telescope, the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy, and the VLT Survey Telescope. Other scientific and support facilities are also located at Paranal, including several smaller telescopes and an innovative accommodation facility known as the Residencia.

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At 2635 metres above sea level in the Atacama Desert of Chile, ESO's Paranal Observatory is one of the very best astronomical observing sites in the world and is the flagship facility for European ground-based astronomy. It hosts several world-class telescopes; among them are the Very Large Telescope, the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy, and the VLT Survey Telescope. Other scientific and support facilities are also located at Paranal, including several smaller telescopes and an innovative accommodation facility known as the Residencia.

Paranal Observatory Map

A Tour at Paranal Observatory

Click on the image to take a Virtual Tour in and nearby the VLT.

Visit Paranal Observatory

Paranal Observatory Timelapse

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At 2635 metres above sea level in the Atacama Desert of Chile, ESO's Paranal Observatory is one of the very best astronomical observing sites in the world and is the flagship facility for European ground-based astronomy. It hosts several world-class telescopes; among them are the Very Large Telescope, the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy, and the VLT Survey Telescope.

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https://goo.gl/maps/GspTygauyGAVoy7d8
The telescope will produce
the deepest, widest, image of the Universe:

27-ft (8.4-m) mirror, the width of a singles tennis court

3200 megapixel camera

Each image the size of 40 full moons

37 billion stars and galaxies

10 year survey of the sky

Up to 10 million alerts, 1000 pairs of exposures and 20 Terabytes of data every night!

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For astronomers and students waiting eagerly to do science with Rubin Observatory, a milestone that brings everything one big step closer is about a week away: Data Preview 0 (DP0) will be the first in a series of three data previews leading up to the start of the Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). For this data preview, participants will access simulated data using the Rubin Science Platform (RSP). Although a small number of users have been accessing the RSP on an experimental basis, this marks the first time that a wider group of science community members are invited to access the platform, and are provided with a level of service and support. The process for selecting DP0 participants aligns with Rubin's commitment to research inclusion; a diverse set of users will test this early version of the RSP in partnership with the LSST Science Collaborations.

The Rubin Observatory's Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) will cover a third of the sky each night, detecting billions of stars and galaxies, and millions of transients, variables, and moving objects. The LSST represents a data set of unprecedented volume and complexity, which will be far too large for scientists to download to their personal computers for analysis. Instead, scientists will use the Rubin Science Platform (RSP), a collection of services developed by the Rubin Data Management team that allow users to process, query, visualize, and analyze the LSST data archives using next-to-the-data computing resources provided by the project, accessed through a mixture of web portal, notebook, and Virtual Observatory services.

For many astronomers, using a remote service like the RSP to leverage the massive LSST data set for their science goals may cause a change to their established workflow or require learning new skills. Enabling scientists and students to start to familiarize themselves with the RSP's software and interfaces, so that they are ready for early science when Rubin begins operations, is a primary goal of Data Preview 0.

Because the RSP is in active development, and the Rubin pre-operations team is limited in its capacity to provide user support, participation in DP0 is limited to 300 scientists and students. The DP0 participants will be supported with resources and infrastructure (e.g., tutorials, seminars, communication channels, networking opportunities), and they will be free to pursue their own science at their own pace using the data in the RSP. The number of participants will be scaled up over the course of the pre-operations period, until at least by the start of Rubin Observatory Operations all data rights holders may have RSP accounts.

Rubin Observatory received a large number of applications for the first phase of DP0. Ensuring research inclusion and participation from a diverse set of scientists and students strongly motivated the applicant selection process. An algorithm was applied to the applications pool that made selections to increase diversity in participants from underrepresented groups in astronomy (e.g., gender, race, or disability-based), from a broad range of stages in their careers, (e.g., students, researchers, or faculty), and from across the four main Rubin science pillars and beyond. In order to ensure a diverse pool of applications, there are no prerequisites for participation other than having Rubin Observatory data rights, which are available to any astronomer working in the US and Chile, and named individuals of International Contributor teams. Participants in DP0 are not required to have knowledge of python or experience with Jupyter Notebooks; scientists who have not previously had training or access to these resources are encouraged to use DP0 as an opportunity to familiarize themselves with new tools.

Because Rubin Observatory is still under construction, Data Preview 0 is using the simulated LSST-like data set generated by the LSST Dark Energy Science Collaboration (DESC) as part of DESC's second Data Challenge (DC2). The DESC's DC2 effort was a huge initiative over several years to simulate a set of images that imitate five years of an LSST-like survey over 300 square degrees. These images are very realistic: they have the same instrumental characteristics that are expected for the Rubin Observatory's LSST Science Camera, and they were processed with an early version of the LSST Science Pipelines that will eventually be used to process LSST data.

The DC2 simulated universe includes galaxies, clusters, large scale structure, Milky Way stars (some of which vary in brightness over time, such as RR Lyrae and Cepheids), and Type Ia supernova explosions. These aspects make the DC2 simulation a practical basis for scientists learning to use the RSP during DP0, a useful data set for astronomers interested in extragalactic astrophysics, and a powerful tool for cosmological analyses. The DESC has made the DC2 data set publicly available (see this note), and more information about the DC2 simulation can be found in this paper.

There will be two stages of DP0. The first stage (DP0.1, in 2021) will make the original DESC simulated data set available to users, and in the second stage (DP0.2, in 2022), the data set will be reprocessed by the LSST science pipelines in order to produce data products that will more closely resemble those of an LSST data release. The DP0 delegates will fill an important role in both phases, testing and providing feedback as they gain experience working with LSST-like data products using the Rubin Science Platform (RSP). For the Data Previews, the RSP will be hosted at the Interim Data Facility (IDF) on the Google Cloud Platform. This agreement marks the first time a cloud-based data facility has been used for an astronomy application of this magnitude. The IDF will use Google Cloud's Storage, Kubernetes Engine and Google Cloud Compute, which will together provide the Rubin Observatory user community with the ability to experience LSST-like data in an early version of the real analysis environment.

More information and discussion about DP0 is available on community.lsst.org (under tags, search on "dp0"), and scientists are encouraged to keep updated about Rubin data preview opportunities-and contribute to the conversation-via this community forum.

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For astronomers and students waiting eagerly to do science with Rubin Observatory, a milestone that brings everything one big step closer is about a week away: Data Preview 0 (DP0) will be the first in a series of three data previews leading up to the start of the Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST).

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https://goo.gl/maps/Y8MUkSxy66T6Xq8g6
Located at 2 hours from La Serena.
The SOAR Telescope is a partnership between the Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovações (MCTI) of the Federal Republic of Brazil, the U.S. National Science Foundation´s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory (NSF´s NOIRLab),  the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), and Michigan State University (MSU). As Chile is the host country, Chilean astronomers are also entitled to access. Current partner share is indicated in the graphic below.

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As most SOAR users are aware, SOAR is now part of a new organization - the NSF's National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory (NOIRLab) - which integrates NOAO, Gemini, Rubin operations and other NSF-supported programs. As part of the transition, the noao.edu domain is disappearing, and being replaced by the noirlab.edu domain. Important - although this end-date was originally set for June 2, an extension until December 2 has been negotiated. There are several consequences to this domain name change that affect SOAR users.

E-mail addresses will change

The URLs of the SOAR web pages will change, as will all other NOAO web pages.

URLs for observing connections will change

Details are described below. This article will be updated as appropriate over the next few weeks. Additional information is or will become available on the NOIRLab website, which should be consulted for anything not related directly to SOAR.

E-mail. The new e-mail system has already been set up, and will function together with the old system until the beginning of December. The user names in the new system are generally of the form "firstname.lastname" whereas the old system mostly used "firstinitiallastname". E-mail sent to either system will end up in the same place for each user, until the old system ceases to exist.

Hence if you are used to e-mailing your colleague Random Astronomer at " rastronomer@ctio.noao.edu", now they will be " random.astronomer@noirlab.edu". An online directory may become available at the noirlab.edu website to help you figure out whether someone's e-mail name is (for example) Ed, Ted, or Edward; you can also consult the contact page on the SOAR website. (The new contact information is listed already.)

Additionally, most aliases have migrated, but have been re-named; the transformation isn't always obvious. A moderately complete list will also be provided on the SOAR contacts page in the next few weeks. Both the individual contacts and aliases work now, so feel free to modify address books.

New SOAR web pages. All useful information is being migrated to the noirlab.edu website, and the pages will retain their content, but will be more integrated with other NOIRLab pages than previously. The migration is now expected be complete in mid-July, at which point you should be able to get to SOAR by going to www.noirlab.edu. clicking on the "Scientist" button (it's not there yet), and drilling down from the "Programs and Projects" tab through "MSO-CTIO" to SOAR instruments and the telescope. It should then be possible to bookmark the SOAR telescope home page or any other page you want to access directly in future.

The overlap period will be shorter than for e-mail, but any pages that fail to migrate can be recovered if their absence is discovered and reported in a timely fashion.

In principle, www.soartelescope.org will redirect correctly, but there could be a period of a day or so after the website transition where it won't.

URLs for observing. Observers will find that, once they connect through the firewall by VPN, all the current computer URLs will continue to work, because the local DNS server will still remember them. Your initial connection to the VPN gateway should use its numerical IP address in any case (and that will not change). To make the transition as smooth as possible, try to use IP addresses (139.xxx.yy.zzz) for all your connections as these will not change.

At some time in the future the VPN gateway itself will likely be different, but that change is not in the immediate future.

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As most SOAR users are aware, SOAR is now part of a new organization - the NSF's National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory (NOIRLab) - which integrates NOAO, Gemini, Rubin operations and other NSF-supported programs. As part of the transition, the noao.edu domain is disappearing, and being replaced by the noirlab.edu domain .

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https://goo.gl/maps/exrkWAnbPfXk4tWSA
The Gemini Observatory consists of twin 8.1-meter diameter optical/infrared telescopes located on two of the best observing sites on the planet. From their locations on mountains in Hawai'i and Chile, Gemini Observatory's telescopes can collectively access the entire sky.

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https://goo.gl/maps/1wEw9NS3fzhEKRA89
•Located at 160 Km at north of La Serena.

•ESO’s first observatory

•3 telescopes of 3,6; 3,5 and 2,2 m operated by ESO.

•2 telescopes of 1,2 and 1,5 m operated by Switzerland and Denmark.

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The La Silla Observatory is located on the outskirts of the Chilean Atacama Desert, 600 km north of Santiago de Chile and at an altitude of 2400 metres. Like other observatories in this geographical area, La Silla is located far from sources of light pollution and, like the Paranal Observatory, home to the Very Large Telescope, it has one of the darkest night skies on the Earth. La Silla has been an ESO stronghold since the 1960s. Here, ESO operates two of the most productive 4-metre class telescopes in the world.

The 3.58-metre New Technology Telescope (NTT) broke new ground for telescope engineering and design and was the first in the world to have a computer-controlled main mirror (active optics), technology developed at ESO and now applied to most of the world's current large telescopes.

The ESO 3.6-metre telescope is now home to the world's foremost extrasolar planet hunter: High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS), a spectrograph with unrivalled precision.

The La Silla Observatory is the first world-class observatory to have been granted certification for the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 9001 Quality Management System.

The infrastructure of La Silla is also used by many of the ESO Member States for targeted projects such as the Swiss 1.2-metre Leonhard Euler Telescope, the Rapid Eye Mount telescope (REM) and the TAROT Telescope gamma-ray burst chaser, as well as more common user facilities such as the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre and the Danish 1.54-metre Telescopes. The 67-million pixel Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre Telescope has taken many amazing images of celestial objects, some of which have now become icons in their own right.

La Silla site map. Credit: ESO
A tour of the La Silla Observatory

Click on the image to take a Virtual Tour in and nearby La Silla.

Chile night time only! During the day the webcam shows the last frame before sunrise. The red letters indicate telescopes that are observing right now (T-the ESO 3.6-metre telescope, N- New Technology Telescope and D-the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope). Please, see more on La Silla - All Sky Camera.

Visit the La Silla Observatory

Journalists, science writers and producers, please see Media Visits

Tourist, students and lay people, please see the Weekend Visits page

Science with the Telescopes at La Silla

With about 300 refereed publications attributable to the work of the observatory per year, La Silla remains at the forefront of astronomy. La Silla has led to an enormous number of scientific discoveries, including several "firsts". The HARPS spectrograph is the undisputed champion at finding low-mass extrasolar planets. It detected the system around Gliese 581, which contains what may be the first known rocky planet in a habitable zone, outside the Solar System ( eso0722). Several telescopes at La Silla played a crucial role in linking gamma-ray bursts - the most energetic explosions in the Universe since the Big Bang - with the explosions of massive stars. Since 1987, the ESO La Silla Observatory has also played an important role in the study and follow-up of the nearest recent supernova, SN 1987A.

More about Science at La Silla

More about La Silla Observatory

La Silla Observatory Timelapse

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The La Silla Observatory is located on the outskirts of the Chilean Atacama Desert, 600 km north of Santiago de Chile and at an altitude of 2400 metres. Like other observatories in this geographical area, La Silla is located far from sources of light pollution and, like the Paranal Observatory, home to the Very Large Telescope, it has one of the darkest night skies on the Earth.

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https://goo.gl/maps/dVhjhwV6cvjeGAGz9
•Located in Cerro Manqui, close to Cerro Las Campanas. 160 km at north of La Serena..

•4 telescopes, including the Magellan Twins of 6,5 m each.

•Building the GMT of 24,5 m.

•Carnegie Institution of Wachington.

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Observatorio Astronómico Cerro Tololo, Vicuña

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Observatorio Astronómico Cerro Tololo, Vicuña

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Observatorio Astronómico Cerro Tololo, Vicuña

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https://goo.gl/maps/xNpZie6UKuqn9mjv8
•First professional telescope

•Located at 80 km from La Serena..

•7 telescopes 0,3 to 4 meters.

•8 robotic telescopes operated from USA..

•AURA, NSF, NOAO

•Open to students and public older than 10 years.

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Para información en español sobre las visitas turisticas a Cerro Tololo, puede enviar un correo electrónico a ctiorecp@noao.edu o llamar a +56-51-2205200.

Cerro Tololo is open to the public every Saturday, summer and winter, weather permitting. For safety and security reasons, the number of visitors is limited to two groups of 40 people. One group meets at the gatehouse at 9 AM and the other at 1PM. Because the number of visitors is limited, advance reservations are essential. During the tourist season from mid-December to March, reservations must be made several weeks in advance. To make reservations, call 51 2205 200. Permits must be picked up in La Serena before proceeding to the mountain. Access to the mountain is by private vehicles only. There is no public transportation.

Permits are free and may be obtained from the Reception Desk in La Serena. Tours are conducted at no charge by a professional guide. Total elapsed time from leaving the gatehouse until returning to the highway is approximately three hours.

For more information on public access to CTIO, click here.

Astronomers and other official visitors planning a trip to Cerro Tololo will find useful information here.

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Para información en español sobre las visitas turisticas a Cerro Tololo, puede enviar un correo electrónico a ctiorecp@noao.edu o llamar a +56-51-2205200. Cerro Tololo is open to the public every Saturday, summer and winter, weather permitting. For safety and security reasons, the number of visitors is limited to two groups of 40 people.