The first star-gazers

In this fisheye fulldome picture, a girl enjoys star gazing in its purest form — staring into a sky unaffected by light pollution. Such a display is only possible nowadays in very remote locations, such as the home of the Very Large Telescope (VLT), where this image was taken. The VLT is based at the Cerro Paranal site in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile. While the star-gazer appreciates the sunset, staff at the world's most advanced ground-based instrument set to work with more innovative techniques of searching the sky.