A stargazing tour of Earth's most extreme telescopes

Caitlin Stier, video intern

Perched high up on the mountaintops of Northern Chile, the region's powerful telescopes provide unrivalled stargazing conditions for astronomers. Last month, our chief features editor, Valerie Jamieson, explored the extreme environment that is home to these observatories. You can follow her journey in this narrated slideshow.

First stop: the Very Large Telescope at Paranal Observatory which is made up of a moving assembly of four giant telescopes and four domed auxiliary telescopes. Its dry and elevated location eliminates the scattering effects of water vapour, allowing this telescope to capture the first shots of an exoplanet and image some of the oldest stars in the universe.

Next, the tour travels upward to the intended location for the European Extremely Large Telescope, a gargantuan structure planned to crown a 3000-metre-high mountain. The project calls for the top of the mountain to be blown off.

A synchronised network of radio dishes known as Atacama Large Millimeter/sub-millimeter Array (ALMA) lies on the icy 5000-metre-high Chajnantor plateau. While antennae are still being added to the array, it has already captured a striking first portrait of cold cosmic dust clouds that serve as star nurseries. The thin air makes for a brief visit, underscoring the challenges astronomers face here.

You can read our full-length field notes to find out more about Chile's astronomical wonders. If you enjoyed this video, you might also like to watch the orchestrated movement of ALMA's radio dishes.

Source: http://feeds.newscientist.com/c/749/f/10897/s/199a5d0d/l/0L0Snewscientist0N0Cblogs0Cnstv0C20A110C10A0Ctour0Echiles0Eextraordinary0Edesert0Etelescopes0Bhtml0DDCMP0FOTC0Erss0Gnsref0Fonline0Enews/story01.htm

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