Cerro Armazones, from sunset to sunrise

A sequence of fish-eye views at the site testing facility atop the 3046-metre Cerro Armazones, the selected site for the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT). In the first picture, the Sun is about to set. In the second, taken at twilight, the crescent Moon is visible on the right, while Venus appears as a bright spot above the horizon, to the left of the Differential Image Motion Monitor (DIMM) platform on the right. The bright star Sirius can be spotted almost in the centre of the image, followed by Canopus to the top left of the tall tower. The Orion constellation can be clearly distinguished below Sirius and the Moon. The third picture is dominated by the majestic view of our own galaxy, the Milky Way, whose central bulge lies at the centre of the image. In the fourth and last picture, the Sun is rising. Here Cerro Paranal, home of the ESO Very Large Telescope, is visible in the background, just to the right of the tip of the  tripod's shadow.

This photograph was taken by ESO Photo Ambassador Serge Brunier.

Links

• ESO Photo Ambassadors webpage.