The dark Chilean sky at ESO sites in the Atacama Desert is among the best places on Earth for observing the stars. Professional astronomers can benefit here of the advanced instruments provided for them by ESO in order to find answers to the many questions we have about the Universe. But apart from offering professional astronomers access to the latest technologies in this favourable environment, ESO also encourages members of its staff who are amateur astronomers in their free time to take advantage of the clear skies.
The ESO education and Public Outreach Department has proudly designated night-sky photographers with special ties to ESO as ESO Photo Ambassadors, assisting them whenever possible and further promoting their photos, so as to bring astronomy closer to people. These are individual ESO who have surprised us with astonishing views of ESO sites and the Chilean skies.
If you would like to find out more about becoming a Photo Ambassador, please send us an email at osandu@eso.org with some of your photos attached or a link to where we can find them.
ESO Photo Ambassador Babak A. Tafreshi
ALMA's World At Night
This panoramic view of the Chajnantor plateau, spanning about 180 degrees from north to south shows the antennas of the Atacama Large
Millimeter/submillimeter Array ranged across the unearthly landscape.- ALMA's World At Night
This panoramic view of the Chajnantor plateau, spanning about 180 degrees from north to south shows the antennas of the Atacama Large
Millimeter/submillimeter Array ranged across the unearthly landscape. - ALMA's World At Night
This panoramic view of the Chajnantor plateau, spanning about 180 degrees from north to south shows the antennas of the Atacama Large
Millimeter/submillimeter Array ranged across the unearthly landscape.
Babak is a science journalist, photographer and astronomy communicator working with all kinds of media. He is the founder and director of The World At Night (TWAN) programme, an international project to produce and present stunning night-sky images above various Earth landscapes. TWAN was designated a special project of the International Year of Astronomy 2009 and this brought Babak into contact with ESO.
Born in 1978 in Iran, he is based in Germany, but is always on the move, and could be anywhere, from the heart of Sahara to the Himalayas or Antarctica. Babak is a contributing photographer for Sky & Telescope magazine, and a board member of Astronomers Without Borders; a US-based organisation that connects people and cultures across the world through a common interest in astronomy. Babak received the 2009 Lennart Nilsson Award, the world’s most recognised award for scientific photography, for his global contribution to night-sky photography.
As a science journalist he was editor of Iranian astronomy magazine, Nojum, from 1997 to 2007. He has contributed to many television and radio programmes on astronomy and has interviewed world-renowned astronomers and space scientists. Besides TWAN imaging, chasing solar eclipses for an astronomy documentary series has taken him to all continents.
ESO Photo Ambassador Fred Kamphues
Sunset over Paranal Panorama
The Very Large Telescope (VLT) on the 2,600m high Cerro Paranal is ESO’s premier site for observations in the visible and infrared light.
Chajnantor panorama
A view across the Chajnantor plain, high in the Chilean Andes, taken from Cerro Chico and looking towards the south, with the Moon visible in the sky.
A 360 degree panorama of a unique cloudscape over La Silla
360 degree view of a rare cloudscape over La Silla, in the southern edges of the Atacama Desert, home of ESO’s first observing site.
Fred’s first involvement with ESO projects dates back to 1998 and the development of the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) delay lines. He was responsible for their mechanical design and assembly, integration and testing. After his first visit to Paranal in 2000 he was keen to immortalise the spectacular technology that was being assembled in the remote Atacama Desert. In 2008 he spent nearly a month in Chile, photographing the various observatories there, including Paranal, La Silla and Chajnantor.
Fred thinks that his photography, and in particular the large wide-field photo of the VLTI kicked off ESO's interest in ultra-high resolution panoramas.
He divides his time approximately equally between engineering consultancy and photography. He is currently the project manager at the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research facility (TNO) for the VLT Four Laser Guide Star Facility optical tube assemblies (4LGSF OTA) and he is also working on the Gaia mission. His engineering background means that he has a very good understanding of complex technical systems, which is extremely helpful when photographing these subjects. Fred is also a member of the SanDisk Extreme Team (http://www.sandisk.com/about-sandisk/sandisk-extreme-team/nature-and-wildlife/fred-kamphues).
ESO Photo Ambassador José Joaquín Pérez
Stars Trails over La Silla
A combined series of nighttime exposures captures these impressive star trails over ESO’s La Silla observatory.
NGC 6188
Impressive image of the NGC 6188 nebula, located some 4000 light-years away, in the southern constellation of Ara (the Altar).
The Vela Supernova Remnant
This beautiful structure is what remains of a massive star that ended its life with a supernova explosion some 11 000 years ago.
José has been taking astrophotographs for over ten years, but his fascination for the sky goes back to his childhood, when he lived in the region of Coquimbo, Chile, a place with some of the most transparent and darkest skies on the planet. He used a telescope for the first time at the Tololito observatory, which belongs to the Seminario Conciliar of La Serena, and is still under the direction of the priest Juan Bautista Picetti. Picetti had the patience to answer José’s endless questions for whole afternoons and gave him his first telescope: a 3-inch f/12 refractor, with a wooden tripod and two eyepieces. José still has this telescope, which introduced him to the phases of the Moon, the rings of Saturn, the moons of Jupiter and the brightest globular clusters in the Southern Hemisphere.
Currently José is an agricultural engineer in a transnational company dedicated to the protection of crops in central Chile. When there’s a new Moon he plans trips to places with great skies near his house or he goes to the north region of Chile, alone or with other astrophotographer friends.
José shares his hobby by publishing his images in magazines, at public conferences and on his website.
ESO Photo Ambassador Farid Char
Stars Trails over Armazones
Multiple-exposure picture taken from the top of the 3060-metre-high Cerro Armazones, the selected site for the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT).
Chajnantor panorama
Stars Trails over Armazones" alt="Multiple-exposure picture taken from the top of the 3060-metre-high Cerro Armazones, the selected site for the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT).
Stars Trails over Armazones
Multiple-exposure picture taken looking west from the top of the 3060-metre-high Cerro Armazones, the selected site for the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT).
Born in 1983, and now living in Antofagasta (Chile), Farid Char works at ESO’s La Silla–Paranal Observatory as member of the E-ELT site-testing team, and he also works as tourist guide for the VLT. He has a degree in psychology, but is a serious amateur astronomer with several years of experience in observation, instrumentation and outreach.
Farid enjoys travelling and being in touch with different aspects of nature, such as forests, glaciers, valleys, mountains, and of course… deserts. For him the art of photography is exemplified by the best of astrophotography, which portrays the Universe as an amazing artwork full of cosmic jewelry.
His contributions to astronomical projects and popular science events have made him widely recognised in the Chilean amateur community, and his photos have been featured on dedicated websites and press releases. As a passionate stargazer, the use of his spare time to observe the night sky is almost an emotional need. And photographs are the best log of these emotions.
ESO Photo Ambassador Gianluca Lombardi
A view of Paranal at sunset from Armazones
The above picture shows Cerro Paranal, home to the flagship Very Large Telescope, at sunset, as seen from Cerro Armazones.
E-ELT site testing — Cerro Armazones / Chile
The above amazing picture shows Cerro Armazones with trailed stars in the backgound.
Paranal Starry Night
Night scene at the 2600 metre high Cerro Paranal, home of ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) array.
Born in Taranto (Italy) in 1979, Gianluca Lombardi works as an astronomer at ESO La Silla–Paranal Observatory and has been in charge of the E-ELT site testing at all Chilean sites since 2007.
Gianluca followed his father into amateur photography, fascinated by the world in which films were still developed in the home-made darkroom in the small alcove just downstairs. The driving concept behind his photographs is to give people the chance to experience the different landscapes and scenery of our planet, and particularly those that are otherwise inaccessible. He always tries to express his feelings by capturing the beauty of nature, in particular through landscapes, wildlife, large-scale subjects and starry skies. He always says he is “honoured to have the opportunity to share with others what he can see with his eyes”.
His photos are published in magazines and books and used at conferences and exhibitions.
ESO Photo Ambassador Serge Brunier
Cerro Armazones night-time panorama
Cerro Armazones was chosen as the site for the planned European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT).
Astrophotographer Serge Brunier
The famous science writer and astrophotographer, Serge Brunier, contributed to ESO’s GigaGalaxy Zoom project.
360° panorama of the VLT platform at sunset
Spectacular 360-degree view of the VLT platform at sunset, when the telescopes are opening and preparing for the night observations.
Born in 1958 in Paris, Serge Brunier has been living in the City of Light ever since. He is a prizewinning photographer and author of books that have been translated into ten languages. He has visited the majority of the world's great observatories and has photographed solar eclipses from the most wonderful landscapes on Earth. As a journalist, he is a contributor to many science and astronomical magazines, such as Ciel et Espace, Science et Vie, La Recherche, The Tenmon Guide, Sky and Telescope, as well as popular magazines such as Paris Match.
In 1986, Serge was awarded the French Academy’s Montyon prize for his book Architecture of the Universe, and in 1994, the French Astronomical Society awarded him the Henry–Rey prize. Serge has been awarded the French Astronomy Book of the Year prize twice, in 1997 and in 2007. Also in 2007, his one-hundred-million pixel picture of the Milky Way was shown as a 144 square-metre image in the Palais de la Découverte, the biggest science museum in Paris. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) named asteroid 10943 in his honour and in recognition of his work of science popularisation. During the International Year of Astronomy 2009, Serge participated in the GigaGalaxy project, taking an all-sky, 800-million-pixel picture from ESO’s La Silla and Paranal observatories.
Today, Serge Brunier works on new landscape night sky photos, essentially in Europe, the United States and South America. His photographic work tends to make a link between the breathtaking, very deep images taken by professional astronomers through their giant telescopes and the sky that anyone can see with the unaided eye.
ESO Photo Ambassador José Francisco Salgado
The Paranal Residencia
Panoramic view of the Paranal Residencia, taken from the south corner of the building, looking north. The windows of the 108 rooms look west (left on the picture), towards the Pacific Ocean.
The central hall at the Paranal Residencia
Panoramic view of the central hall at the Paranal Residencia, with a swimming pool and the main indoor garden.
The ESO VLT Yepun Telescope Opening
The fourth of the ESO Very Large Telescope 8.2-metre Unit Telescopes (UTs) during the start-up procedures before sunset.
Born in Puerto Rico, José Francisco Salgado lives in Chicago where he works as an astronomer and science visualizer at the Adler Planetarium. He uses his skills in astronomy, education, and visual arts to create multimedia works that communicate science in engaging ways. His education and outreach efforts include an Emmy-nominated astronomy TV news segment and critically acclaimed astronomy films created to accompany live performances of classical music works. These films were named a Special Project of the International Year of Astronomy (IYA2009) and have been presented around the world more than 50 times in 13 countries with orchestras such as the San Francisco Symphony, the Boston Pops, and the Czech National Symphony Orchestra.
Salgado, an avid photographer who has visited more than 17 observatories, experiments with high dynamic range imaging, time-lapse, infrared, and fisheye photography, as well as with stereoscopic photography and video to enhance his multimedia works. Through his work, Salgado seeks to create visually appealing images to provoke curiosity and a sense of wonder about the Earth and the Universe.
ESO Photo Ambassador Yuri Beletsky
Paranal After Sunset
The four Unit Telescopes of ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) on top of Cerro Paranal, illuminated by starlight on a dark and very clear night, typical of this excellent site, among the best in the world for astronomical observations.
Celestial Conjunction at Paranal
In the night sky over ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) observatory at Paranal.
Panorama of Sunset on Paranal
Magnificent sunset view on the telescopes of ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) observatory on Cerro Paranal.
Born in Belarus, Yuri now lives in Chile where he works as an astronomer at the European Southern Observatory’s La-Silla/Paranal observatory. Yuri has been an enthusiastic amateur stargazer since childhood. With the rapid development of digital imaging technology, he discovered a passion for astrophotography.
The dark skies above Cerro Paranal Mountain in the Atacama Desert provide a unique opportunity to reveal the majesty of our cosmos. During his spare time at the observatory, Yuri likes to set up a small equatorial mount and take wide-field panoramic images of the Milky Way and other natural phenomena. What can be achieved with a simple DSLR camera under dark Chilean skies is nothing short of amazing. Short snapshots deliver fascinating views of the surrounding landscape at dusk or dawn, while longer exposures produce breathtaking pictures of the starry sky.
Images obtained by Yuri have been featured on popular websites, and in press releases, books and magazines. He continually shares his passions for astronomy and astrophotography with people around the world.
ESO Photo Ambassador Stéphane Guisard
A 340-million pixel starscape from Paranal
The second of three images of ESO’s GigaGalaxy Zoom project is a new and wonderful 340-million-pixel vista of the central parts of our galactic home.
Trailing stars above Paranal
The rotating sky above ESO's Very Large Telescope at Paranal.
Sunset at Paranal
Twice per year, the sunset passes exactly behind Paranal for somebody located on the summit of Armazones mountain, 20 kilometres away.
Native of the Lorraine region in France, Stéphane Guisard has been living in Chile since 1994, where he works as an Optics engineer at the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in the Atacama Desert. He is specialized in active optics, optical alignment and telescope image quality improvement.
Besides working in a professional observatory, Stéphane is also an amateur astronomer, a hobby enjoyed since childhood when he started to build his first telescopes.
What he likes most is taking pictures and time-lapse movies of the night sky in order to share the beauty of the heavens to the public. He takes advantage of the pure and dark skies over the Atacama Desert and Andes Altiplano to make sharp deep sky astrophotographs. His images have been published in many books, magazines and television programmes around the world.
Stéphane also shares his passions for telescope optics, astrophotography, photography and astronomy through lectures at amateur meetings and in schools.
ESO Photo Ambassador Gerhard Hüdepohl
Paranal under snow
Cerro Paranal, in the Chilean Atacama Desert, is considered one of the best astronomical observing sites in the world.
The Milky Way over Paranal
Majestic night landscape, where the dark silhouette of the VLT atop Paranal Mountain, brings out over the amazingly starry background.
The Paranal Residencia
The long, facade opens towards the Pacific Ocean and provides a great view of the colourful sunset.
Gerhard Hüdepohl was born in Germany and lives in Chile since 1997, where he works as an Electronics Engineer at the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope on Cerro Paranal.
Since his early years he has been fascinated by nature and started to capture its beauty with his camera.
In Chile he frequently travels through the Atacama Desert to photograph remote and little known places. What he enjoys most is to explore locations where nature is still untouched, such as Antarctica and subantarctic islands, the temperate rainforests and glaciers of Patagonia or the jungle and mountains of Bolivia.
As a private pilot Gerhard Hüdepohl often takes the opportunity to fly over desert and mountain landscapes to capture them from the air.
His photos have been widely published in books, magazines, exhibitions and calendars.
A ESOcast video Compilation including the Photo Ambassadors
This video in HD is available here