Sunset at the ELT construction site

Taken at sunset in June 2023, this image shows ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) under construction at Cerro Armazones, a mountain at an altitude of about 3000 metres. Nestled in the Chilean Atacama Desert, the giant dome will host the telescope with a 39-metre diameter primary mirror and several instruments. On top of the round concrete base there is a network of steel beams which are mounted on a rail inserted into trolleys. Thanks to this movable structure, the entire dome will rotate and the telescope will be able to point at different parts of the sky.