Espacio – La Frontera Ultima
I went to San Pedro de Atacama for a couple of reasons, but I mainly went because I wanted to see what I believe to be the greatest star show on earth. When I was near Mt Hanang, Tanzania last June witnessing the best stars I had ever seen, I wondered about how much better it would be in Atacama Desert, Chile. Well I can report that San Pedro is an amazing place to see as much of the Universe as possible. I signed up for an evening at a local astronomer´s home where Allen and his wife have five telescopes and put on quite an informational feast. The stars in town are good, but nothing extraordinary. Their home is a few kilometers out and above town where it is very dark and the viewing is more than extraordinary.
The Atacama Desert is the perfect place to view because it has a high altitude, clean air, low humidity, few people and therefore few lights and it is in the Southern Hemisphere where you get the real view of the Milky Way as compared to our minor view in the north. Proof of how good it is can be found not far from Allen´s home where USA, EU, Japan and Chile are building the world´s largest radio telescope array of fifty twelve meter diameter dish antennas. We started the evening looking the Milky Way with our eyes and learning where the Southern Cross and other constellations are located in the sky. We also marveled at the dark areas of the Milky Way which the Inca thought of as constellations. The main dark area looks, coincidentally (?), like a llama. During all of our viewing we were treated to meteor showers because there is a minor shower each year around April 22nd. After we went indoors for a talk and to warm up, we went back outside to view objects with the telescopes. We looked at Saturn and could see its rings!!! We looked at Jupiter and could see its stripes!!! We also looked at nebulae, star nurseries, twin stars and a few other objects including a galaxy with red, blue and yellow stars in a perfect line.
Atacama´s star show lived up to all my expectations. I doubt I will ever see better, but maybe earth will surprise me since it seem to do so regularly. The night ended late at 1:00 AM which I guess is early for astronomy. The next day I did a tour that was also a bit spacey albeit wholely on earth. I visited Valley of the Moon late afternoon with another tour and we watched the sun set over a valley of lunar-like rock formations. The surrounding volcanic mountains of the Andes glowed pink as well as the rock formations. The sunset itself was a dud, but what would one expect in one of the driest places on our planet! The real show was the light reflecting off the ground. But the highlight of the day was meeting Lauren from Redondo Beach, CA. We had a good time on the tour and then went out to dinner at one of the great restaurants in San Pedro. The lowlight was once again meeting a wonderful person and having to say goodbye way too early because paths diverted the following day with me heading to Bolivia. One of these days…
Tags: Chile, south america, Travel
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