Desert star gazing

Let me begin by saying that our visit to the Atacama desert far surpassed anything we had done in a long time. It was truly amazing and some of the coolest landscapes we had ever seen. It was, without a doubt, the most unique of all scenery on our trip. If anyone is planning a trip to Chile, this should not be missed.

After spending all day checking out geysers, volcanoes, lagoons, salt and flamingos at super high altitudes with long intermissions in the  van, it was nice to join up with a ‘star tour’ in the middle of the night. I, for one, was plain giddy about this “tour’’ and was looking forward to it for awhile. I guess I am a bit of a nerd, but whatev. Stars and space are cool.

To give a little background, the Atacama desert has the best star gazing, planet watching, and constellation admiring in the world, hands down. The US and other countries have an official observatory there, too. We met the rest of our group and jumped on a coach bus which drove us out of the small town of San Pedro. Fifteen minutes later, the driver cut the lights and we rolled up to a pitch dark place and that’s when I looked out the window and saw this.

Yeah. not too bad at all. Our “tour” was led by a Canadian astronomer from Space Obs with an interesting sense of humor. He helped us find ALL of the constellations with the naked eye. I have never seen so many stars. We couldn’t get any photos of the stars to come out, so I borrowed this one from another space tourist on Trip Advisor. After we had a 45 minute conversation with the group and astronomer, we were just about to freeze to death. It was more than worth it, though. We learned a lot and the stars.. just, wow. We then moved on to the telescopes which were trained or positioned on various constellations, stars and planets. But the coolest was Saturn.

I took this photo through the telescope, so it’s not great (my camera doesn’t have a long enough exposure). The view with the telescope was crystal clear, though. You could even see the individual rings.

We finished the tour with a chat about space, black matter, black holes and other cool space things while wrapped up in blankets, sipping hot chocolate. I managed to stay awake for most of it and we went back to the town around 1 am. It was a night well spent :)

-a