Northern Skies

Stargazing
We thought we'd seen the best of the best in Coquimbo where the night sky is considered part of the region's natural heritage and extensive regulations limit light pollution. But one particular nighttime stargazing tour in the Atacama came highly recommended (Space Observatory), so we took a chance, and it was probably our favorite astronomy tour yet.

We met in downtown San Pedro at 8 pm to climb in a bus and drive about 30 minutes out of town. When the bus pulled off onto a dirt road for the final stretch, the driver turned off all the lights - even the headlights - so that our eyes could begin adjusting. We couldn't tell but hopefully he had some lights on while driving...

We got off the bus next to a small building, and our tour guide took over from there. It was a large group but our guide did an excellent job of being loud, charismatic, funny, and knowledgeable. He covered all your standard astro-tour bases: the zodiak, nebulas, using the sky as a calendar. But he also covered a lot of topics that astro-tours usually leave us wondering about: non-zodiak constellations, the social and political history of constellations, the history of the astronomy scientific community. After a lengthy but entertaining introduction, we were introduced to around 10 different telescopes all trained on various celestial points of interest and then allowed to wander freely among them. This format was much better than what we've seen previously (looking one-by-one through each telescope).

This is approximately how Saturn looked through the telescope (photo from http://twohermitcrabs.com)

Jupiter was NOT this clear, but you could see the red spot (photo from http://www.aapodx2.com)

Finally we went inside and had a chance to ask any lingering questions over hot chocolate.

We didn't bother trying to take our own pictures because we don't have the proper equipment. This is approximately how the sky looked. (photo from www.cascada.travel)

ALMA

ALMA is the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array- 66 radio-wave telescopes on a plateau in the Atacama desert. Europe, the US, Canada, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and Chile have all contributed telescopes and collaborate on the research happening at ALMA. ALMA gives free tours, but they are first come/first served, so we had to join the waiting list. We showed up at the bus ready to be disappointed, but there were enough no-shows that everyone got to go (the entire waiting list, AND some people who just showed up).

The tour takes you to the ALMA base camp, where data is analyzed. The actual telescopes are on a plain at over 15,000 feet above see level. ALMA researchers have to use oxygen tanks when they work on the telescopes, and the time they spend at altitude is strictly regulated. They work 8 days, then have 6 days off. The first of their 8 days is spent getting a physical health checkup. On their second day, they can only work 2 hours before returning to base camp, and over 4 days they slowly increase up to a full 8 hours. 

The actual telescopes (photo from https://www.almaobservatory.org)

The 66 telescopes can be rearranged depending on what the researchers wants to observe. Multiple telescopes can even coordinate to act as one large telescope. This same technique can also be used on a global scale, with multiple telescope sites across the world pooling their data to act as one telescope the size of the Earth. ALMA was part of a group that did this not too long ago to get the famous first image of a black hole.

ALMA helped capture this image of a black hole (photo from https://www.space.com)

Scientists from all over the world can apply to use ALMA's resources. They then own the data from ALMA for a set period of time (we think a year). If they don't publish a paper using the data in that time, the data becomes public.

One of the telescopes was at base camp for repairs.

ALMA is very cool, but the tour was nearly 3 hours long and not very hands-on. We humbly suggest that if you are in San Pedro, you skip the tour and just read this blog post instead. We've included all the coolest bits of info.