Paranal: from mountain top to top observatory

Three different views of the Paranal site: in 1991, still as a remote mountain peak in the Atacama desert, with a few ESO containers in place; in 1994, at the end of the preparatory earthworks for the construction of the Unit Telescope enclosures; and in late 1999, with the virtually completed upper platform and the world's foremost optical/infrared observatory with four operational 8.2-m telescopes. The support structures for the movable VLTI Auxiliary Telescopes are also seen.