ESO Council meeting, April 26, 2010

The selection process of the site for the planned 40-metre-class Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), concluded at the ESO Council meeting, on April 26, 2010 at ESO Headquarters, in Garching, Germany. Taking into account the very clear recommendation of the Site Selection Advisory Committee and all other relevant aspects, especially the scientific quality of the site, Council has now endorsed the choice of Cerro Armazones as the ELT baseline site. Cerro Armazones is a mountain at an altitude of 3046 metres in the central part of Chile’s Atacama Desert, some 130 kilometres south of the town of Antofagasta and about 20 kilometres from Cerro Paranal, home of ESO’s Very Large Telescope.