A bird's eye view of ESO’s Very Large Telescope

This image, taken from way up in the air above Cerro Paranal at sunset, looks down over ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) and the stunning surroundings of the Atacama Desert, Chile. The VLT consists of four Unit Telescopes — the large cylindrical structures clearly visible here — with main mirrors of 8.2-m diameter and four movable 1.8-m diameter Auxiliary Telescopes — the small spherical structures on the right of the platform. The telescopes are capable of working not only individually, but also together as part of the ESO Very Large Telescope Interferometer, a feat of engineering that allows astronomers to detect much finer details of the cosmos than would otherwise be possible.