Road to La Silla

On the road to ESO's La Silla Observatory, with the decommissioned Schmidt telescope on the right. La Silla, in the southern part of the Atacama desert, 600 km north of Santiago de Chile, was ESO's first observation site. The telescopes there are 2400 metres above sea level, providing excellent observing conditions. Currently, ESO operates the ESO 3.6-metre telescope and the 3.58-metre New Technology Telescope (NTT) at La Silla. This site also hosts many national telescopes, including the Swiss 1.2-metre Leonhard Euler Telescope and the Danish 1.54-metre telescope.