SEST at La Silla

The 15-metre Swedish-ESO Submillimetre Telescope (SEST) at ESO's La Silla observing site in the southern part of the Atacama desert of Chile. Designed to observe at sub-millimetric wavelengths, SEST was built in 1987 on La Silla and decommissioned in 2003. It was a precursor of APEX and ALMA. 2400 metres above sea level, La Silla was ESO's first observing site. Currently ESO operates the ESO 3.6-metre telescope and the 3.58-metre New Technology Telescope (NTT) at La Silla. This site also hosts many national telescopes, including the Swiss 1.2-metre Leonhard Euler Telescope and the Danish 1.54-metre telescope.