La Silla Observatory
Coordinates: 29 ° 15 ′ 23 " S , 70 ° 44 ′ 17" W
The La Silla Observatory , located about 600 kilometers north of Santiago de Chile on the 2400 m high mountain La Silla in the municipality of La Higuera , was the first observatory of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Chile , to which another observatory has since opened the Cerro Paranal has been added. The asteroid (2187) La Silla was named after the mountain.
history
Even before ESO was officially founded in 1962, the search for a promising location for an astronomical observatory in the southern hemisphere began. After an initial search in South West Africa (now Namibia ), political pressure soon turned interest in more favorable locations near the coast of northern Chile. Finally, the decision was made in favor of the Cinchado , about 160 km north of La Serena , also known as La Silla (Spanish for the saddle) because of its shape, as the location of the ESO observatory. In 1969 the observatory on La Silla was opened.
present
La Silla is home to many telescopes, some of which were and are operated by ESO itself and some by other institutes and universities. Many smaller telescopes have since been shut down, but La Silla plays even in the age of the Very Large Telescope of the Paranal Observatory nor the ESO an important role.
| telescope | diameter | Art | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|
| ESO 3.6 m | 3.6 m | optical / infrared | ESO, since 1976 ( equipped with HARPS since 2003 ) |
| New Technology Telescope NTT | 3.5 m | optical / infrared | ESO, since 1989 |
| MPG / ESO 2.2 m | 2.2 m | optical / infrared | On loan from the MPG since 1984 |
| Danish 1.5 m | 1.5 m | Denmark, 1979 | |
| Leonhard Euler Telescope | 1.2 m | Search for exoplanets | Switzerland, since 1998 |
| Schmidt telescope | 1 m | ESO, 1971, rebuilt in 2009 | |
| DENIS | 1 m | especially for sky surveys in the infrared | France |
| MASCARA Multi-site All-Sky CAmeRA | 5 cameras with 24 mm focal length | Complete sky coverage with wide-angle shots at a short distance | since 2017 |
| BlackGEM | 3 × 0.65 m | Array of three telescopes, expandable to 15 telescopes | under construction, planned from 2018 |
| Extra | 3 × 0.6 m | since 2017 |
| telescope | diameter | Art | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|
| ESO 1.52 m | 1.52 m | ESO, out of service since 2002 | |
| Coudé Auxiliary Telescope CAT | 1.4 m | Auxiliary telescope for the Coudé spectrograph of the ESO 3.6 m | ESO, at Lund Observatory since 2006 |
| ESO 1 m | 1 m | especially for photometry | ESO, rededicated to DENIS |
| MarLy 1m | 1 m | EROS project | France, out of service |
| Dutch 90 cm | 0.9 m | Netherlands, 1979, out of service | |
| Swiss T70 | 0.7 m | out of service since Euler 1998 | |
| Bochum telescope | 0.61 m | Univ. Bochum, 1968, out of order | |
| ESO 50 cm | 0.5 m | ESO, 1971, out of order | |
| Danish 50 cm | 0.5 m | Denmark, 1971, out of service | |
| Grand Prism Objectif GPO | 0.4 (prism) | ESO, 1968, out of order | |
| Marseille 40 cm | 0.4 m | France, out of service | |
| Swedish ESO Submillimeter Telescope SEST | 15 m | Submillimeter / millimeter parabolic antenna | Sweden, ESO, 1987, out of service |
panorama
See also
literature
- Hoimar von Ditfurth (Photos: John Launois): "Astronomy: The research monastery La Silla." In: Geo-Magazin. Hamburg 1979, 7, pp. 42-62. Informative experience report: “Hoimar v. Ditfurth visited European astronomers who live like monks high in the Andes. ”The author met u. a. together with Hans-Emil Schuster . ISSN 0342-8311
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Star gazing in Namibia. Info-Namibia.com. Retrieved February 28, 2019.
- ↑ HARPS: The Planet Hunter
- ↑ ESO: The ESO 1.52m Telescope