This film is possibly the earliest one recorded, using an integrating CCD. It shows two telescope buildings (1-m, and 1.52-m ESO) at La Silla, Chile, on March 9, 1983. The bright star is Capella. It is saturated along horizontal directions.
Each of the 32 exposures lasted 60 seconds. No filter was used.
Clouds move quickly and undergo strong morphological changes, from exposure to exposure. Now and then, observers switch light on in the domes, and from outside, passing cars cause reflection in the aluminum cladding. Bright lights in the lower part of the frame are due to vehicles travelling on the Pan American Highway, some 30-40 km away. In the seventh exposure, a diffuse light in the upper right corner may be caused by a meteor. Notice two airplanes flying North, close to the western horizon (frame nos 16-18 and 26-31).
On a similar set of unfiltered 10-second exposures, stars are not appreciably trailed, and the limiting magnitude appears to be m(R)=8.0
The data were acquired with ESO's first CCD detector, an RCA chip
with 312 x 520 pixels,
in the hope that this exersize could promote the construction of
a CCD-based optical Gamma-Ray Burst detecting set-up. Sixteen years
later, the exposures are used as argument for an
All Sky Monitor for Paranal.