La Silla and the Milky Way

This image shows some of the many telescopes that live at ESO's original observatory, La Silla, which is located at an altitude of 2400 metres in the Chilean Atacama Desert. This site offers excellent viewing conditions, with around 300 clear nights per year, exemplified in this image by the bright band of our own galaxy, the Milky Way, visible overhead. La Silla became the largest astronomical observatory of its kind, and many of its telescopes have paved the way for new kinds of astronomical technology; the New Technology Telescope (NTT) was a forerunner of the Very Large Telescope (VLT), while the Swedish-ESO Submillimetre Telescope (SEST) paved the way for APEX and ALMA. La Silla celebrates the 50th anniversary of its inauguration this year (2019), and remains among the most scientifically productive observatories in the world.