On the mountaintop

ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) studies the Universe from atop Cerro Paranal, a 2600-metre high mountain south of Antofagasta, Chile. The starry sky appears to move throughout this timelapse footage, due to the rotation of the Earth. The bright band of the Milky Way rotates into view at about 0:30 in the top right corner and the Magellanic Clouds are visible from sunset at about 0:05. Occasionally, a bright laser is seen being sent from the VLT up to the sky. This laser, produced by Unit Telescope 4 (Yepun), is part of the Adaptive Optics system, state-of-the-art technology which corrects the blurring effects of the Earth's atmosphere to produce sharper astronomical images.