Announcement

Light Pollution Seminar held in Antofagasta, Chile

4 August 2010

A report on the latest progress in the design of the European Southern Observatory’s European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT), to be built on Cerro Armazones in the Chilean Atacama Desert, was one of the highlights of the Second International Seminar on Light Pollution held on 2–4 August at the Atacama Desert Museum in Antofagasta, Chile.

The European Southern Observatory (ESO), in collaboration with the Chilean National Commission for Environment, Chilean universities and the Office for the Protection of the Quality of the Skies in the North of Chile, organised this event, supported by the Ruinas de Huanchaca Foundation, Antofagasta Municipality and the Chilean Astronomy Society, to promote the protection of dark skies as a scientific heritage.

Experts from Europe, Brazil, Argentina and the USA discussed the benefits of improving the efficiency of urban lightning to reduce light pollution, and the resulting positive impact on the environment, energy consumption, economy and science. International astronomical observatories and representatives of future projects emphasised the importance of the dark night skies of northern Chile and pointed out the need to protect this resource for future generations.

Participants had the unique opportunity to visit ESO’s Paranal Observatory to see the sunset from the platform of the Very Large Telescope (VLT), one of the most productive astronomical observatories in the world, a clear example of the superb scientific results that can be achieved when state-of-the-art technology is used under dark skies.