A look into the stars

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What to do in San Pedro de Atacama during the night? Party? Nah... everything closes early... Sleep? Not really... See the stars? Of course...

Atacama desert is famous also becasue of its weather (what else hehe). They only have a few rainy or cloudy days and nights in the year. Usually, from march do early december its completely clear... Also, there is little light pollution. Therefore, this desert is famous for its star gazing, and when you drive from La Serena north, you can see a plenthora of observatories on the hills... And apparently, near San Pedro they are building the biggest "collection" of observatories on the world on the altittude around 4800m above sea level. Its called ESO Alma, and its still in construction.

Anyway. I wanted to see the stars, and you could come even closer with the "help" of french astronomer Alain Maury, who settled here, just to star gaze every night. With our tour there was only one problem. It started at 0:30 at night. And that means late!

First part of the tour consisted out of looking through telescopes to see different stars and star formations. Alejandra was excellent. The second part of the tour was an explanation of the sky by Alain. And he was really good; knowledgable and funny. Experience was excellent. From upclose we have seen different stars, it was great to "walk on the moon" with the telescope. Now I know basics about the stars (and i forgot about 90% when we left the tour, but still), and its great to know about the Sirius, Orion or the southern cross. Now i know how to orientate on the southern hemisphere 😊))

We were also lucky. Because of the full moon coming on 12. December, they will now cancel their tours for 4 days. In january and february they also usually go on hollidays, as the clouds (and an odd rain) come from Bolivia, as there is a wet season in amazonia... And even more lucky, as the tour before us had lots of clouds, and only at midnight the sky was again clear...

Link to space obs... http://www.spaceobs.com/

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