Site testing at Cerro Armazones

This is a photograph of the Differential Image Motion Monitor (DIMM), during the site testing at Cerro Armazones. The DIMM measures the atmospheric seeing by taking a rapid series of measurements of the differential positions of two images of the same star on a detector. Cerro Armazones was selected as the baseline site for the planned Extremely Large Telescope (ELT). Armazones is a 3046-metre mountain in the central part of Chile’s Atacama Desert, about 130 kilometres south of the town of Antofagasta and about 20 kilometres from Cerro Paranal, home of ESO’s Very Large Telescope.

This photograph was taken by ESO Photo Ambassador Serge Brunier.

Links

• ESO Photo Ambassadors webpage.