Star gazing - the clearest skies on earth

Chile has reputedly the clearest skies on the planet, so its the best place in the world for star gazing. Not surprisingly there are lots of observatories nearly all of these are funded by North America and by European countries, who can afford the hundreds of million pounds needed to build one. The Chilieans have a right to use them for a certain no. of days per year (about 10%). Demand is high and the cost of using one for a night runs into tens of thousands of pounds!

the skies are so clear that up to the eighth magnitude can be observed with the naked eye and the centre of a galaxy can be easily seen. (if that means anything to you)

We visited the Mamalluca Observatory near Vicuña (about 1 1/2hrs north of Santiago) near the Elqui Valley. They run a number of tours in both english and spanish, several per evening including ones for enthusiasts and those wanting to learn more. The tour started a bit late (no surprise) at 11pm and finished at 2am. Not bad for a night out!

Cedd enjoyed it so much that he wanted to go again the next day!

We saw saturn and the moon in a large telescope, and took photos with our cameras of the image through the telescope.


It was just after full moon so the sky was actually a bit too bright for seeing the stars really well . Our guide doesn´t like the moon for this very reason but we couldn't complain, the sky looked amazing compared to what we see at home in london.

Our guide recommended the following computer program - starry night - which you can download (for free I think) from http://www.starrynight.com/.

if you can understand some spanish:
http://www.mamalluca.org/inicio.htm