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Smithsonian Journeys Travel Quarterly: Inca Road

A Smithsonian magazine special report

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


TRAVEL

Smithsonian Journeys Travel Quarterly: Inca Road


AN ASTRONOMER’S PARADISE, CHILE MAY BE THE BEST PLACE ON EARTH TO ENJOY A STARRY
SKY

Chile’s northern coast offers an ideal star-gazing environment with its lack of
precipitation, clear skies and low-to-zero light pollution

Govert Schilling

July 22, 2015

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Milky Way and moon illuminate a lone tree in the Atacama Desert, Chile. ©
Nicholas Buer/Corbis

The view through the eyepiece of the telescope is breathtaking. Like tiny
diamonds on black velvet, countless sparkling stars float against a fathomless
backdrop of empty space. “This is Omega Centauri,” says astronomer Alain Maury,
who runs a popular tourist observatory just south of San Pedro de Atacama in
northern Chile. “To the naked eye, it looks like a fuzzy star, but the telescope
reveals its true nature: a huge, globular cluster of hundreds of thousands of
stars, almost 16,000 light-years away.” I could take in this mesmerizing view
for hours, but Maury’s other telescopes are trained at yet more cosmic wonders.
There’s just too much to see.

Chile is an astronomer’s paradise. The country is justly famous for its lush
valleys and snowcapped volcanoes, but its most striking scenery may be overhead.
It is home to some of the finest places on Earth to enjoy the beauty of the
starry sky. If there’s one country in the world that really deserves stellar
status, it’s Chile.

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If you live in a city, as I do, you probably don’t notice the night sky at all.
Yes, the moon is visible at times, and maybe you can see a bright planet like
Venus every now and then, but that’s about it. Most people are hard-pressed to
recognize even the most familiar constellations, and they’ve never seen the
Milky Way.

Not so in Chile. A narrow strip of land, 2,700 miles long and 217 miles at its
widest point, Chile is tucked between the Andes Mountains to the east and the
Pacific to the west. It stretches from the arid Atacama Desert in the north to
the stark granite formations of the Torres del Paine National Park in the south.
Large parts of Chile are sparsely populated, and light pollution from cities is
hardly a problem. Moreover, the northern part of the country, because of its dry
desert atmosphere, experiences more than 200 cloudless nights each year. Even
more important to stargazers, Chile provides a clear view of the spectacular
southern sky, which is largely invisible from countries north of the Equator.


THIS ARTICLE IS A SELECTION FROM OUR NEW SMITHSONIAN JOURNEYS TRAVEL QUARTERLY

Travel through Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia and Chile in the footsteps of the Incas
and experience their influence on the history and culture of the Andean region.

Buy

Long before European astronomers first charted the unknown constellations below
the Equator, just over 400 years ago, the indigenous people of Latin America
knew the southern sky by heart. Sometimes their buildings and villages were
aligned with the heavens, and they used the motions of the sun, the moon and the
stars to keep track of time. Their night sky was so brilliant that they even
could recognize “dark constellations”— pitch-black, sinuous dust clouds
silhouetted against the silvery glow of the Milky Way. The Inca dark
constellation of the llama is particularly conspicuous, as I noticed during my
visit to Maury’s observatory.

It wasn’t until the mid-20th century that Western astronomers were drawn to
Chile, in a quest for the best possible sites to build Southern Hemisphere
observatories. Americans and Europeans alike explored the mountainous regions
east of the port of La Serena, a few hundred miles north of the country’s
capital, Santiago. Horseback expeditions lasting for many days—back then, there
were no roads in this remote part of the world—took them to the summits of
mountains like Cerro Tololo, Cerro La Silla and Cerro Las Campanas, where they
set up their equipment to monitor humidity (or lack thereof), sky brightness and
atmospheric transparency.



Before long, astronomers from American institutions and from the European
Southern Observatory (ESO) erected observatories in the middle of nowhere. These
outposts experienced their heyday in the 1970s and 1980s, but many of the
telescopes are still up and running. European astronomers use the 3.6-meter (142
inches) telescope at the ESO’s La Silla Observatory to search for planets
orbiting stars other than the sun. A dedicated 570-megapixel camera attached to
the four-meter (157 inches) Blanco Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American
Observatory is charting dark matter and dark energy—two mysterious components of
the universe that no one really understands.

1 / 9

The Milky Way hangs in the sky over the Chilean Death Valley in the Atacama
Desert. © Nicholas Buer/Corbis
2 / 9

Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in La Serena, Chile © Robert Harding
World Imagery/Corbis
3 / 9

The exterior of the telescope dome at the Las Campanas Observatory in La Serena,
Chile, as night falls. Its 100-inch telescope is visible inside. © Roger
Ressmeyer/CORBIS
4 / 9

The European Southern Observatory in La Silla, Chile, just after sunset © Roger
Ressmeyer/CORBIS
5 / 9

The Antennae Galaxies are seen in this image made from the parabolic antennas of
the ALMA (Atacama Large Millimetre/Submillimetre Array) project at the El Llano
de Chajnantor in the Atacama Desert, October 2011. ALMA is the world's largest
and highest—at 16,000 feet—ground-based astronomical observatory. ©
HO/Reuters/Corbis
6 / 9

Mamalluca Observatory in La Serena, Chile © Barbara Boensch/imageBROKER/Corbis
7 / 9

The Collowara Observatory in Andacollo, Chile, is a tourist observatory. ©
Walter Bibikow/JAI/Corbis
8 / 9

Ian Shelton stands by a telescope at the Las Campanas Observatory. Shelton
discovered Supernova 1987A in the Large Magellanic Cloud (immediately to the
right of the telescope) with this telescope. © Roger Ressmeyer/CORBIS
9 / 9

A lagoon reflects the Milky Way in Atacama, Chile. © Nicholas Buer/Corbis

If you’re star trekking in Chile, it’s good to know that most professional
observatories are open for tourists one day each week, usually on Saturdays.
Check out their schedules in advance to prevent disappointment—the drive from La
Serena to La Silla may take almost two hours, and the curvy mountain roads can
be treacherous. I once got my four-wheel-drive pickup truck in a spin while
descending the gravel road from Las Campanas Observatory, a scary ride I hope
never to repeat. Also, dress warm (it can be extremely windy on the summits),
wear sunglasses and apply loads of sunblock.

Most professional observatories are open to visitors only during daytime hours.
If you’re after a nighttime experience, the region east of La Serena—especially
Valle de Elqui—is also home to a growing number of tourist observatories. The
oldest is Mamalluca Observatory, some six miles northwest of the town of Vicuña,
which opened in 1998. Here amateur astronomers give tours and introductory
lectures, and guides point out the constellations and let visitors gaze at stars
and planets through a number of small telescopes. Everyone can marvel at the
view of star clusters and nebulae through the observatory’s 30-centimeter (12
inches) telescope.

You can look through a 63-centimeter (25 inches) telescope at Pangue
Observatory, located ten miles south of Vicuña. At Pangue, astronomy aficionados
and astrophotographers can set up their own equipment or lease the observatory’s
instruments. Farther south, near the town of Andacollo, is Collowara
Observatory, one of the newest tourist facilities in the region. And south of La
Serena, on the Combarbalá plain, is Cruz del Sur Observatory, equipped with a
number of powerful modern telescopes. Most observatories offer return trips to
hotels in Pisco Elqui, Vicuña or Ovalle. Tours can be booked online or through
travel agents in town.

I will never forget my first look at the Chilean night sky in May 1987. I was
awed by the glorious constellations of Scorpio and the Southern Cross, the
star-studded Milky Way with its many star clusters and nebulae, and of course
the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds (two companion galaxies to our own Milky
Way). Using today’s digital equipment, all of this can be captured on camera.
Little wonder that professional astrophotographers have fallen in love with
Chile. Some of them have the privilege of being designated photo ambassadors by
ESO: They get nighttime access to observatories, and their work is promoted on
the ESO website.



Every traveler to Chile interested in what’s beyond our home planet should
visit—and photograph—the country’s Norte Grande region. It’s a surrealistic
world of arid deserts, endless salt flats, colorful lagoons, geothermal activity
and imposing volcanoes. East of the harbor town of Antofagasta, the Atacama
Desert looks like a Martian landscape. In fact, this is where planetary
scientists tested the early prototypes of their Mars rovers. The alien quality
of the terrain makes you feel as if you’re hiking on a forbidding yet
magnificent planet orbiting a distant star.

The 45-mile gravel road that took me through the rock-strewn Atacama from Ruta 5
(Chile’s main highway) to Cerro Paranal during my first visit there in 1998 has
since been paved, providing much easier access to the ESO’s Very Large Telescope
(VLT)—one of the foremost professional astronomical observatories in the world.
Here, 8,645 feet above sea level, astronomers enjoy the serene spectacle of
sunset above the Pacific Ocean before they switch on the four huge 8.2-meter
(323 inches) Unit Telescopes, which are equipped with high-tech cameras and
spectrographs that help them unravel the mysteries of the universe. And yes,
even this temple of ground-based astronomy is open to visitors only on
Saturdays.

A couple hundred miles to the northeast, tucked away between the Cordillera de
la Sal mountain range and the Altiplano on the border with Argentina, is the
oasis of San Pedro de Atacama. The region was inhabited thousands of years
before the Spanish conquistadors built the first adobe houses and a Roman
Catholic church in the 17th century—one of the oldest churches in Chile. Today
San Pedro is a laid-back village, populated by backpackers and lazy dogs. It
serves as the hub for exploratory trips to the surrounding natural wonders, from
the nearby Valle de la Luna to the remote El Tatio geyser field.

Even though electric street lighting was introduced in San Pedro some ten years
ago, it’s hard to miss the stars at night. A few steps into a dark side road
will give you an unobstructed view of the heavens. Don’t be surprised, while
you’re sipping a pisco sour in one of the many restaurants in town, to hear
American, European or Japanese visitors talk about the big bang, the evolution
of galaxies, or the formation of stars and planets. Over the last couple of
years, San Pedro has become a second home for the astronomers of the
international ALMA observatory.



ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array) is the latest addition to
Chile’s professional astronomical facilities. It’s one of the highest (altitude:
16,40 feet) and largest ground-based observatories in the world, with 66
antennas, most of them 12 meters (40 feet) across. The actual observatory, at
the Llano de Chajnantor, some 30 miles southeast of San Pedro, is not open to
tourists, but on weekends, trips are organized to ALMA’s Operations Support
Facility (OSF), where you can visit the control room and take a look at antennas
that have been brought down for maintenance. On clear days the OSF offers
stunning views of nearby volcanoes and over the Salar de Atacama salt flat.
While ALMA studies invisible radiation from distant stars and galaxies, San
Pedro also affords many opportunities for old-fashioned stargazing. Some fancy
resorts, like Alto Atacama and Explora, have their own private observatories
where local guides take you on a tour of the heavens.

But if you really want to immerse yourself in the Chilean night sky, I strongly
recommend a visit to SPACE, which stands for San Pedro de Atacama Celestial
Explorations. Here, French astronomer and popularizer Maury and his Chilean
wife, Alejandra, welcome you with hot chocolate, warm blankets and entertaining
stories about the history of astronomy before they take you to their impressive
telescope park.

It was here that I got my first look at the globular cluster Omega Centauri. I
marveled at the clouds of Jupiter, the rings of Saturn, binary stars, softly
glowing nebulae, glittering groups of newborn stars and distant galaxies.
Suddenly the world beneath my feet turned into an inconspicuous speck of dust in
a vast, incredibly beautiful universe. As the famous American astronomer Carl
Sagan once said: “Astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience.”
The Chilean night sky touches your deepest self.

For professional astronomers, Chile will remain the window to the universe for
many years to come. On Cerro Las Campanas, plans are in place to build the Giant
Magellan Telescope, featuring six 8.4-meter (330 inches) mirrors on a single
mount. Meanwhile, the European Southern Observatory has chosen Cerro Armazonas,
close to Paranal, as the site for the future European Extremely Large Telescope
(E-ELT). This monster instrument—which would be the largest
optical/near-infrared telescope ever built—will have a 39-meter (128 feet)
mirror consisting of hundreds of individual hexagonal segments. It is expected
to revolutionize astronomy, and it may be able to detect oxygen and
methane—signs of potential life—in the atmospheres of Earthlike planets orbiting
nearby stars.



In 2012 I drove the bumpy trail to the summit of Armazonas, and took a small
stone for a souvenir. Two years later the mountaintop was flattened by dynamite
to create a platform for the E-ELT. One day I hope to return, to see the giant
European eye on the sky in its full glory. But well before the telescope’s
“first light,” Chile will beckon me again, to witness the wonder of a total
solar eclipse, both in July 2019 and in December 2020.

I have to admit I’m hooked. Hooked by the cosmos, as seen and experienced from
the astronomical paradise of Chile. You’ll understand when you go there and see
for yourself. Who knows, one day we may run into each other and enjoy the view
together.



Govert Schilling | READ MORE

Govert Schilling is the prize-winning author of dozens of popular astronomy
books. He writes about astronomy and space science for newspapers and magazines
from his hometown of Amersfoort, the Netherlands.

Astronomy Chile Chile Travel Cultural Travel Smithsonian Journeys Travel
Quarterly Smithsonian Journeys Travel Quarterly: Inca Road
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