Site testing on Cerro Armazones

The European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) Programme Office has studied half a dozen potential sites for the future E-ELT observatory, which, with its 40-metre-class diameter, will be the world’s biggest eye on the sky. Various aspects need to be considered in the site selection process. Parameters taken into account are not restricted to “sky quality”, but include more general scientific aspects, as well as parameters essential for construction and operations. The above video shows site testing at Cerro Armazones, the site which was selected by the ESO Council. Cerro Armazones is an isolated mountain at 3046 metres altitude in the central part of Chile's Atacama Desert, some 130 kilometres south of the town of Antofagasta and about 20 kilometres away from Cerro Paranal, home of ESO’s Very Large Telescope.