Mounted image 051: Panorama of the Southern Sky

The Milky Way arches across this rare 360-degree panorama of the night sky above the Paranal platform, home of ESO’s Very Large Telescope. Taken in the early morning, the Moon is just rising and the zodiacal light shines above it, with two of our galactic neighbours, the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds, ­visible below the Milky Way’s arc. Silhouetted against this splendour are the 1.8-metre Auxiliary Telescopes and the four giant 8.2-metre Unit Telescopes at the observatory.