In early 2016, a select group of photographers visited ESO’s observatories in Chile.
Their mission: to obtain stunning visuals at these remote facilities
for use in the upcoming ESO Supernova Planetarium & Visitors Centre.
This is the ESOcast!
Cutting-edge science and life behind the scenes at ESO, the European Southern Observatory.
ESO’s Supernova Planetarium and Visitor Centre will open in 2017
at ESO’s Headquarters in Garching, Germany.
It will share a wealth of breathtaking visuals with the public.
The planetarium features a dome where fisheye images will be projected.
Such extremely wide-angle pictures can be captured using
specialist lenses attached to digital SLR cameras.
What could be a better place to gather these unusual views of the pristine night sky
than the Atacama Desert of northern Chile?
In March 2016, the Fulldome Expedition set off for ESO’s observatories in Chile
where the very clear and dark night sky offers a perfect view of the heavens.
The expedition team included renowned ESO Photo Ambassadors
Yuri Beletsky, Petr Horalek and Babak Tafreshi.
It was also strengthened by Theofanis Matsopoulos, a pioneer of Ultrafast planetarium cinematography.
The team gathered first at Paranal, the home of ESO’s Very Large Telescope.
After capturing a collection of stunning visuals,
the team prepared for the six-hour journey to the largest ground-based astronomical project in existence:
ALMA, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array.
Here, 5000 metres above sea level in the challenging conditions of the Chajnantor Plateau,
the team worked hard to capture more dramatic material.
Chajnantor may be perfect for submillimeter astronomy, but the low-oxygen air and cold,
dry conditions make working conditions extremely demanding for humans.
After the gruelling effort of long cold nights imaging at ALMA,
our team turned southwards and travelled to the last stop on their journey:
La Silla, ESO’s first observatory.
La Silla has long been an ESO stronghold, and the organisation
still operates two of the most productive 4-metre-class telescopes in the world from the site.
The tried-and-tested infrastructure of La Silla is also used by many of the ESO Member States,
who run projects at their own facilities.
With such a wealth of material to image, the team spent some time exploring the observatory
and choosing the most promising sites.
As at Paranal and ALMA,
the material produced by the Fulldome expedition at La Silla is mesmerising.
ESO’s Fulldome expedition has successfully captured a very wide variety of beautiful visual material
including Fulldome timelapses, stills and thousands of images of ESO facilities
and the superb Chilean night sky.
And for our hardworking team of astrophotographers,
the trip was a perfect opportunity to test and develop their skills under some of the darkest skies on Earth.
The pristine Chilean skies did not disappoint them.
The ESO Supernova will be the first open-source planetarium in the world.
As such, ESO is offering all of these high-quality visuals
— for audiences from the public to fellow planetariums — for free.
You can already download the first results from ESO’s website.
The Fulldome Expedition has opened a new way to bring the beauty of Chile’s skies to the public.
It continues ESO’s mission to share the wonders of the night sky
with all who care to view them.
Transcription by ESO; translation by —