AstroGuigeek
Cerro Tololo's marvelous nightsky
The Cerro Tololo Observatory is located at the edge of the Atacama desert, at 2,200 meters altitude, in the world's first International Dark Sky sanctuary.
It is home to the NSF NOIRLab's Victor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope which is currently looking for Dark energy interactions between distant galaxies by capturing wide and highly-resolved images of our Universe with a 570 megapixels camera called DECam!
I captured this image during a memorable clear night in winter atop the Cerro Tololo mountain. The milky way was shining so bright I was able to find my way on the starlit ground without use of any headlight!
The orange dot is planet Mars, just under the galactic bulge.
The dome at the center is hiding the 1.5-meter SMARTS–GSU
telescope operated by the Georgia State University. The reflective dome to the right is the so-called Victor M. Blanco 4-meter telescope.
As an optical instrumentation engineer and astronomy lover, I will always be impressed not only by the design, assembly and performances of such pioneer optical instruments - CTIO is the first 4-meter class observatory ever built in Chile, in the 1970's - but also by the staff who has been operating/maintaining them on a daily basis to keep them to their finest performance level, even after decades of services brought to the international astronomical community!
TECHNICAL DETAILS
📷 Canon 700D + Sigma Art 18-35mm F/1.8 lens + Standard tripod
→ 20 stitched pictures
→ Single 15 seconds exposure
→ ISO 3200
→ 18 mm
→ f/1.8
Date: August 2018
Location: Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, Cerro Tololo, Coquimbo Region, Chile.
Softwares: Dxo Optics pro 9 for noise reduction / Lightroom for all the edits / Auto Pano Giga for the final stitching.
Cerro Tololo's marvelous nightsky
The Cerro Tololo Observatory is located at the edge of the Atacama desert, at 2,200 meters altitude, in the world's first International Dark Sky sanctuary.
It is home to the NSF NOIRLab's Victor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope which is currently looking for Dark energy interactions between distant galaxies by capturing wide and highly-resolved images of our Universe with a 570 megapixels camera called DECam!
I captured this image during a memorable clear night in winter atop the Cerro Tololo mountain. The milky way was shining so bright I was able to find my way on the starlit ground without use of any headlight!
The orange dot is planet Mars, just under the galactic bulge.
The dome at the center is hiding the 1.5-meter SMARTS–GSU
telescope operated by the Georgia State University. The reflective dome to the right is the so-called Victor M. Blanco 4-meter telescope.
As an optical instrumentation engineer and astronomy lover, I will always be impressed not only by the design, assembly and performances of such pioneer optical instruments - CTIO is the first 4-meter class observatory ever built in Chile, in the 1970's - but also by the staff who has been operating/maintaining them on a daily basis to keep them to their finest performance level, even after decades of services brought to the international astronomical community!
TECHNICAL DETAILS
📷 Canon 700D + Sigma Art 18-35mm F/1.8 lens + Standard tripod
→ 20 stitched pictures
→ Single 15 seconds exposure
→ ISO 3200
→ 18 mm
→ f/1.8
Date: August 2018
Location: Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, Cerro Tololo, Coquimbo Region, Chile.
Softwares: Dxo Optics pro 9 for noise reduction / Lightroom for all the edits / Auto Pano Giga for the final stitching.