Cerro Armazones at night

Images at night at the ESO Astronomical Site Monitor on Cerro Armazones in the Chilean desert, near ESO's Paranal Observatory, site of the Very Large Telescope (VLT) Cerro Armazones is a candidate site for the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), one of half a dozen potential sites, which, with its 40-metre-class diameter mirror, will be the world’s biggest eye on the sky. On the ELT Site Selection Advisory Committee's final short list for the recommended site, Armazones is also the committee’s preferred site, because it has the best balance of sky quality across all aspects and can be operated in an integrated fashion with the existing Paranal Observatory.