Chile 2000: The Telescopes

The Telescopes--the whole reason I went there

The 4 meter telescope. The best view in the house is afforded by the catwalk that goes up to the top of the dome visible at the upper left.

Looking down at the telescope from the catwalk.

A good scale comparison; note You-Hua standing near the yellow stairway.

You-Hua Chu at the work analysing data and making my life miserable ;-).

The full moon illuminates things pretty well. But you can still see stars.

Alberto (right), our operator, and Edguardo one of the technical support people. Without these two chaps and others like them, the whole astronomical business would come quite litterally crashing to a halt.

A view from the catwalk on the 4-meter.

These vents open up to allow air flow through the 4-meter dome.

Looking east through the slit toward the rising moon and the dorm at sunset.

If you don't treat the telescopes nicely, they will eat you. Usually when you least expect it!

Me in the instrument cage under the mirror. That mass of boxes and tubes is the spectrograph.

Sun's coming up in the east; time to take the lamp spectra and put the telescope to bed.

Sun is up. Time to go to bed!

Another day, another sunset.

Is this Tatooine or what? Moonrise over the telescopes.