Chile is known for having lots of observatories. In fact, the largest observatory in the world is currently being built in the northern part of the country.
For a while now we have been wanting to go to a tourist observatory near Vicuna (up the canyon about 30 km to the east of La Serena). With Bill and Terrie here, it was the perfect opportunity to go. We planned to go on a Friday night and it couldn't have worked out better. The skies were clear and there was a new moon...perfect conditions for star gazing. Before going to the observatory, we spent a little time in Vicuna at the artisan shops.
Bill was entertained by the heiroglyphic wall art, especially with the "Dios de la fertilidad" (god of fertility) shown to the right.
Terrie found some interesting artwork as well. She bought three nice matching pieces.
Evan was super excited to go to the observatory.
We were able to get in for the 8:30 tour. There were other tours that began at 10:00 and 1:00 in the morning. The nice thing about the early tour was that we were able to see the sun set and see Venus and Jupiter apear. The picture above shows Venus in the sky above the sunset. Later on in the tour we were able to look at Venus through the telescope.
This is BJ looking at Venus through the outside telescope. Venus looked like a bright light when veiwed through this telescope. Our nice tour guide, who spoke to us in English, always let BJ and Evan be first to look through the telescope because they were the youngest of the group.
Our guide pointed out all the constellations that could be seen at that time to us and told us the stories behind the constellations. It was so strange to not be able to see the Big and Little Dipper or the North Star or to see Orion upsidedown. It made me feel like a was very far from home. While outside we were also able to look at a small, dim, star. Actually it wasn't a star at all but millions of stars clustered together. It really was amazing. Later, we were taken inside to a larger telescope where we had the chance to look at Jupiter. This time the planet wasn't bright like Venus. We could actually see the planet, the striped pattern on its surface, and four of its moons.
Or tour group was relatively small and each of us was able to enjoy time looking through the telescope. Our guide gave us a chance to take pictures at the end as well.
Here is a picture Dave took outside using his camera. It is of the constellation Orion. To the left are his shoulders and his legs are a little higher to the right.
We went to the observatory on Friday night. Dave went back as an invited guest on a business tour the next Wednesday and was able to look at the moon. He took this picture with his camera through the telescope.
After our tour, Dave was taking some pictures outside with long exposures. We had a flashlight and thought we would try to write with the light. The camera exposed the light for one minute.
Emily did an excelllent job of writing her name with the flashlight.
BJ did a great job, too. He forgot to write the J backwards. Still very cute.
Dave did this fun design.
Then he carved a love note for me in the night.
Evan gave it a try, but it was hard to remember to write backwards and to space the letters close together.
Andrew got started and then the battery gave out. We had fun anyway.
Below are a couple of great websites that we used at our Mamalluca observatory experience. The first one is the website for the observatory. You can watch a little of the computer presentation we saw that night. The other one is a great program that allows you to see the night sky from whenever or wherever you would like, even from other planets.
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