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360 degree Paranal Observatory Panorama

© Stéphane Guisard, Los Cielos de Chile

Zoomable and 'full-screenable' 360 degree Panorama of ESO-Paranal Observatory platform. The four 8m (UT) and four 1.8 m (AT) diameter telescopes of the VLT are all observing under the Milky Way arch during this very dark Southern hemisphere spring night. The large (LMC) and small (SMC) Magellanic clouds are visible to the left of the picture while another galaxy, Andromeda Galaxy (M31) is also visible just to the right of UT4. Bright Jupiter is high in the sky. The picture also shows two 'astronomical' lights, the zodiacal light crossing the Milky Way center vertically (just at the left of the middle of the image, above AT3) and the Gegenschein, usually very difficult to observe, below Jupiter on the right hand side of the image. Zoom inside the Milky Way, you will find the red North America nebula between UT3 and UT4, the many Messier objects close to the Galactic center, and several galaxies around Andromeda galaxy, like M33 for example. Cerro Armazones, located 20km away from Paranal, is the summit were the E-ELT will be built. See here for an annotated version of the picture

Paranal platform 360 degree panorama with annotations.

Virtual reality tour of this panorama picture. Click on the symbols in the window(GO FULLSCREEN BY CLICKING the arrowed 'X' on animation) or use arrow Keys or click & drag mouse to move Left/Right/Up/Down, Shift/Ctrl Keys or mouse wheel to zoom In/Out ....... have a nice trip !!